


Cerulean Horizons

by remi_wolf



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (except very much free form), (sylvain was abused as a kid so obviously it's going to come up), Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Awful Fathers, Character Study, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Male My Unit | Byleth, Miscommunication, Multi, Nesting, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Slow Burn, Tea Parties, i really should include that one, sylvain's got a pretty unhealthy relationship with alcohol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22469941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remi_wolf/pseuds/remi_wolf
Summary: The year is 1180. Sylvain is finally able to slip from underneath the oppressive gaze of his father in Gautier territory. He could be his own person, at least for the year that he would be at the Academy for, but that would be enough before returning to the stiff shackles that would be his noble life as the next Margrave. He would be the perfect Alpha and Crest-bearer for his family, protecting Faerghus from Srengi incursions, and produce the perfect little Alpha Crest-bearer babies to continue the cycle again and again. However, nothing happens as planned during this year at the Officer's Academy.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, Sylvain Jose Gautier & My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 26
Kudos: 110





	1. Many Arrivals

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope that you have enjoyed the first chapter of this fic. It's a massive one that I've been planning for a couple of months at this point, and I hope that I'm going to be able to provide something that's interesting for people. It's going to be anywhere from...12-14+ chapters, with two more parts to follow. The plan is for there to be three parts to this series, with the first comprising the year at the Officers Academy, one to cover the Time Skip, and then the third part to follow Azure Moon. I have most of the fic mapped out at this point, and I'm planning on releasing one chapter a week, either on Sunday, Wednesday, or Saturday. 
> 
> Oh, questions there might be, as there always is for A/B/O fic:  
> Those with crests are the only ones that can be either Alpha or Omega. If you've got a crest, you've got a secondary sex as well.  
> Alpha women and Omega men are woefully uncommon.  
> Alpha women and Omega men can either impregnate someone or be impregnated.  
> Omegas go into heat approximately once every three months for three to seven days, approximately, though it can also be brought on by intense emotional strain. This can range from being horny as all get out, to having a fever, to even rampant paranoia, depending on the omega and the reason for the heat.  
> Speaking of heats, I'm going to try to keep this from getting into questionable consent territory. It's obviously something that's an issue in A/B/O fics, but I'm trying to make sure I'll deal with it.  
> Alphas have a rut that happens roughly along that same cycle of once every three months, but it's very common to skip ruts. Symptoms can include horniness, protectiveness dipping into paranoia, frustration and rage, things like that. Ruts can also be brought on by Omega heat pheromones.  
> I...think that's the basic questions people might have about my take on A/B/O? It'll also be explained in the fic in a more natural way, I promise.
> 
> If you've made it here, thank you so much! Hopefully you've enjoyed this first installment, and I would love some comments, or kudos, or even just some hits. Looking forward to hopefully having more of you around next week!

CHAPTER 1: MANY ARRIVALS

CERULEAN HORIZONS

GREAT TREE MOON, 1180

Normally, settling into a new room far away from the Gautier Keep would be more than enough to Sylvain to blanket-announce a day as one of the best in his lifetime. Yes, they were a usual occurrence that happened at least three times a year, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t intensely enjoy them. Whether it was settling in for the summer months in the Fraldarius Estate, or springs and fall with the Blaiddyd Citadel, Sylvain lived for the months in which he was away from the frigid Keep he needed to call home. 

However, the trip to Garreg Mach Monastery and the Oghma Mountains took Sylvain further south than he had ever gone, even including the rare trips to Galatea territory with Ingrid, and while the Oghma Mountains were high and far cooler than the valley below that led into Alliance territory, Sylvain still wasn’t used to the heat. Clearly, he wasn’t, or else helping the servant move the few trunks wouldn’t have him so exhausted and layers peeled down to his shirtsleeves like some stable hand. Impressions were important, even if Sylvain wished they weren’t, and he was currently making an absolutely _awful_ one on the other nobles that were attending the Officer’s Academy this year. At least it seemed as though some of the others were having his own issue. Well, a few. Namely, Dimitri, Felix, and the few other students that he recognized bearing the familiar Faerghus blue he had been raised on. Well, never let it be said that the Blue Lions weren’t consistent, nor cut from the same cloth. 

Still, practically gasping for breath against the door frame and able to feel his shirt sticking to his spine was not exactly the look that Sylvain was going for on the first day. He had women and omegas to woo, nobility to impress, and mostly, he had a room he needed to move into in order to feel like he was vaguely home for the next year, before he was shunted off to the Watchtower that would be his life until he died. Just what he always wanted. 

“My lord, do you need me to escort you to the infirmary? I am sure that I could--” 

Sylvain waved his hand, silencing the servant behind him as he took a deep breath. It wasn’t the man’s fault that Sylvain felt as though he could pass out against the door frame, and Sylvain shouldn’t have been so short with him, even if he hadn’t spoken. He sighed, finally straightening up, even if he needed to grab the wall for support. “I’m fine, Alain. I appreciate the concern, though,” he said, offering the man a tired smile. “Go ahead and just leave the trunks for me to unpack, and go take care of the horses and things or whatever else you need to do. You’re dismissed, that sort of thing.” Sylvain waived Alain off again, hoping that the man would relax a touch, but it seemed as though the dark-haired servant had other ideas as he opened his mouth to speak, clearly wanting to argue with him. Sylvain couldn’t help but feel himself deflate, not wanting to deal with fighting with him. Goddess help him, there wasn’t a better servant than Alain, but he didn’t need anyone fussing over him while he just caught his breath. 

“I do believe you were dismissed. I shouldn’t be surprised that this is the behavior of House Gautier’s servants, but somehow I am. Leave him be, he’s an adult and can take care of himself.”

Sylvain couldn’t help the tired smile at the familiar voice, even if it meant that poor Alain ended up scrambling and disappearing down the hallway, quickly excusing himself as though he was practically running away from the lordling just behind Sylvain. While Alain might be terrified of the man, Sylvain just felt absolute relief as he turned around to see the familiar face. 

“Fe. It’s been too long.”

Felix rolled his eyes, though there was a slight crinkle to them that Sylvain recognized, and Sylvain couldn’t help himself but pull Felix into a quick and tight hug before letting him go. Even with that, Felix was grumbling under his breath, though he didn’t seem quite as furious as he otherwise could have been. 

“It’s been six months, ‘vain. Hardly longer than it usually is.”

“Normally we’re together for the new year, though.” The words came out as a slight whine as Sylvain pouted, and Felix just sighed, rolling his eyes. Still, there was a slight softness to his expression that Sylvain could notice, even if he doubted that even Dimitri or Ingrid could place it at all. It was nice to see, and it helped to reassure him somewhat that they were still friends, even despite the time apart, even if it wasn’t anything too unusual. “I missed you. It might be six months, but I always miss having you around.”

“I…” Felix huffed a sigh, looking up at the ceiling before he continued speaking. “I missed you too, Sylvain. It was too long, especially with how cold of a winter it was. I had hoped to travel north at some point, but there was that blizzard, and my father refused to let me leave in fear of there being a second one to sweep across the Plain.”

Sylvain sighed, trying not to shiver as he remembered just how cold that had been, and how it had kept even the Srengi deep in their lands. While that meant he didn’t have to leave, it also meant that...well, he didn’t have to leave. Six solid months of time with his parents without being able to leave on an excuse of ensuring the border is safe. 

“Well, the winter’s finished, and now we’re here at school, very far away from the frigid north. Maybe we’ll end up being able to catch a bite together, see if we could catch a few omegas to eat with,” Sylvain said, waggling his eyebrows at the end, and just laughing as Felix made a disgusted noise and punched his shoulder. Sylvain winced, rubbing at it and not looking forward to the bruise, but it was worth the look on Felix’s face. 

“Have you even presented yet, you idiot? You’ve always been absolutely insatiable. And incorrigible. I can’t believe you. We’re supposed to be training to be proper soldiers and nobility, and here you are, just intent upon continuing to flirt and sleep around. You’ll be worse here than in Fhirdiad, won’t you?”

Sylvain rolled his eyes before sighing, his hand dropping to his side. “I’m teasing, Felix. I know you don’t like it. Just take care of yourself, have fun. That’s all. I know you don’t care at all for things like that. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed at all.”

Felix settled back a little at that, looking at Sylvain with a touch less venom in his eyes, before just sighing and rolling his eyes. “I’ve not changed. We’re in an intense course. We won’t have time to flirt like that.”

“Clearly you’re the same as ever. I don’t know why I was worried.”

Felix huffed, rolling his eyes, and Sylvain couldn’t help but pull him into a tight hug again, burying his face against Felix’s neck and taking a deep breath as he held onto him. It wasn’t nearly long enough before Felix was pushing him away, and a strange stone of disappointment chilled his stomach as he pulled away and looked at the annoyed wrinkle to Felix’s nose. Sylvain shouldn’t have expected any different, but the rejection still stung, and he forced a touch of a smile onto his face, opening his mouth to say something, before Felix cut him off. 

“You stink with travel. You’re going to stink up the entire floor if you don’t go take a bath. The rest of us are going to head to the dining hall to get a bite to eat after we’re settled in, so maybe an hour.” 

Sylvain looked at Felix for a moment, looking at how he was just glaring at a patch of floor that clearly insulted his mother with the way Felix was regarding it, and Sylvain finally just nodded, carefully reaching out to brush his knuckles against the back of Felix’s hand. 

“I’ll see you at dinner, then. Don’t get lost. I know this is a big monastery and all,” Sylvain murmured softly before turning and disappearing into his room. A bath would help. Cool water was just what he needed to cool off and settle down. It would be a good way to relax before dealing with everyone in the dining hall.

* * *

The bath didn’t help.

Well, maybe it was less that the bath didn’t help than the fact that there had been so many people still running around the dormitories that the walls started closing in on him, and he got turned around enough, somehow, that he couldn’t even find the baths, despite the fact that they were right at the staircase that he had ended up walking past three times. Eventually, Ingrid or someone took pity on him and shoved him into the room, and Sylvain ended up in the right place. Then, the water was either too warm, or too cold, and while he eventually managed to settle into it and relax, he ended up just shivering even worse when he pulled himself out of the water. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he had a fever, or the flu, but that was an absolutely ridiculous notion that didn’t make sense. It had to be the exhaustion of a long march from Gautier Keep that settled into his bones and kept him from feeling normal. He’d be fine in the morning, once he slept, or something like that. At least, he had to be fine, because he knew that it would be pathetic if he ended up sick just from that march from home, and an awful, humiliating way to start the school year. 

“Oh, whoops, careful! You nearly squished me there.” 

Sylvain frowned slightly, straightening up before quickly forcing a charming smile on his face as he saw a pink pigtails and a rather adorable face, and he tried not to hate himself for having to deal with people so suddenly. “Sorry, darling. I must not have seen you at all.”

“Clearly. Look, are you okay? You look a little out of it. Are you getting sick? I really hope you’re not getting sick at all. I’d hate to catch it.”

“I’m not getting sick.” Sylvain rolled his eyes, even if he knew that he didn’t entirely feel as though he was healthy, but she didn’t need to know that. He quickly bowed, closing his eyes when the world started spinning after the quick motion. “I’m Lord Sylvain Gautier. It’s a pleasure to meet someone as pretty as you, and already on my first day. I can tell that I’m going to be a lucky man if all of the women here are as pretty as you are.”

The girl giggled, grinning up at him. “I’m Lady Hilda Goneril. I’m from the Alliance. I’m guessing from your manners that you’re either Empire or Kingdom?”

“Kingdom. Far northern territory is my family’s.” Sylvain thought over it, remembering something about Goneril and he hummed softly. “Goneril, your family takes care of Fódlan’s Locket, correct?”

Hilda’s eyes widened slightly as she looked at him before nodding quickly. “That’s right. My brother, Holst Goneril, he’s one of the main generals there, protecting us from the Almyrans. How would you possibly know that?”

Sylvain smiled, shrugging. “Lucky guess. I remembered something about your family because we have a similar purpose up north, with Sreng. So I guess you might have come up in my lessons at some point.”

“Well, alright then. I guess I’ll believe you.” The wink punctuating the sentence only made it clear that she didn’t believe his excuse whatsoever, and Sylvain rolled his eyes before carefully starting to edge around her. The carefree expression on her face instantly turned into something more concerned, however, and she put a hand on his arm. “Do you need help to your room, honestly? I’m happy to try, or to get someone that might be able to.”

Sylvain sighed, shaking his head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you, though,” he said before pulling away with a wink, starting to walk down the hallway. Forcing himself to put on a good face seemed to help settle him, at least a little bit, and he found himself quickly settling into himself better as he made his way to the hall and finally got properly dressed into the new uniform, freshly made and delivered to him just before he left for school. At least he made sure the uniform would be comfortable enough, and it certainly was, fitting like a glove. Well. Best foot forward, and Sylvain finally started making his way down to the dining hall to hopefully manage a few bites of dinner before the dining hall closed. He remembered hearing something about it being open only for an hour, except on free days, which he wasn’t sure he hated or not. 

After several wrong turns, and somehow not realizing that the dining hall was less than a hundred feet away from the stairway up to his dormitory block, Sylvain finally walked up the staircase to the dining hall, and into the crowded room. Immediately, the usual cacophony of voices that assembled whenever there were more than twenty people in a room together at the same time assaulted Sylvain’s ears, and he forced himself to stand still as his headache immediately came back full force and he nearly crumpled. There were far too many people, and clearly he had to be getting sick if he thought that. People were good. People meant that he wasn’t in the lonely Keep. People were supposed to help keep Miklan from--

“Sylvain! There you are. We were worried you had gotten yourself thrown in the pond, or flung off the bridge.” Ingrid’s familiar voice immediately cut through the static of the room, and Sylvain’s eyes instantly landed on hers as his face relaxed into the usual flirty-fake smile that a years-long habit had etched into his muscles. 

“Ingrid, seriously, I wouldn’t ever get myself thrown into a pond. I don’t know why you’d think that could happen.”

“Sylvain.”

The glare she leveled at him, combined with the way her hand tightened on his arm quickly had him half-laughing, trying to get her to relax and let go. 

“Sorry, sorry. I was trying to get cleaned up and all. I have _some_ class, no matter what you like to think. That’s all. Now, where are we sitting?” He glanced around before finally seeing Felix, eyes locking with his for a moment before he looked back at Ingrid, and she sighed. 

“We’re sitting at the corner table, at the end. Dimitri found the other Blue Lions, so we’re all sitting together, so you need to be nice. Now, the table at the end of the hall is where you pick up a plate, they have three options, so grab what you want, and then come back to join us and all.”

Ingrid finally let go of him at that, walking back over to the others, and Sylvain looked at the rest of the table beyond just Felix. There was an empty spot next to him, likely saved for Sylvain, which he appreciated, but then there were a few people he didn’t recognize. Granted, those were probably the other lions, but it was still unusual to see his small group of friends talking with them. At least he recognized Dedue, though it looked as though the Duscar man had shot up at least another few centimeters, which really was just insult on injury at this point. Though, naturally, that might just be appearances deceiving him, as a slip of a kid was sitting next to him, grinning and talking with a couple of others that he didn’t recognize at all. Likely two other Blue Lions that weren’t nobility or something like that. 

Sylvain sighed softly as he looked at the group, before turning to the long table at the end of the hall. The food did smell good, he supposed, even if his stomach turned over at the thought of anything. Hopefully, there would be something that wouldn’t make him sick, and he made his way over to the short line, glad that it was so short at this point, though he supposed it helped that dinner was nearly finished at this point. Still, Sylvain was able to track down something that seemed appealing enough, a plate with a few sauces mixing on one side of the plate, and on the other, fried balls that he could smell the spiced pepper and light trout from. The familiar scent of the fish dango even managed to remind him of some of the early spring days with Dimitri and Felix and Ingrid in Fhirdiad, especially from when they were younger. He supposed that he could grab some sweets, and while he usually enjoyed them usually, the idea of having to eat more than absolutely necessary made his stomach turn enough that he found himself gripping the edge of the table, with a strong urge to go bolting to the pond to empty his stomach. After a moment, it passed, and Sylvain took a shaking breath before finally moving to sit down next to Felix, instantly pressing his face to Felix’s shoulder. 

“You look pathetic.”

“Thank you, you do too,” Sylvain said, not even looking up at Felix to try and glare at him to prove him wrong. He felt pathetic, even if he had been feeling better not even five minutes prior. He was about to look up and start eating when he felt a heavy hand dropp onto his shoulder, jostling his entire torso and just pulling a quiet groan out of him as he finally straightened up, seeing Dimitri sitting on his other side. Apparently he had missed that as he was sitting down. 

“Felix is right. You really do look awful. Are you going to be able to attend classes in the morning? I would hate for you to miss your first day at the Academy.”

Sylvain sighed, rolling his eyes as he looked at the food, starting to pick at it with a fork, wondering if he would be able to manage classes in the morning if he didn’t end up getting better at all. “I’ll be fine. I just need to rest. It’s just a different climate, and I’ve had farther to travel than everyone else. It’s just me getting used to this place.”

“If you’re sick, you really should go rest rather than deal with us. I’m sure sitting in this dining hall isn’t doing you any favors at all.”

Sylvain looked up at the new voice, one he didn’t recognize, though he was quickly able to see who had spoken, at least, he assumed so based on the way one of the new girls was smiling at him, and the other seemed to be rather focused on her dessert more than him. He quickly offered them a smile as well, straightening up. “I’m fine, I promise. I just need a bit of rest tonight, and then I’ll be good as new in the morning. Trust me, it’s hard to keep me down for long at all.”

Felix rolled his eyes before nodding. “He’s right, unfortunately enough. He broke his leg trying to get down to the river to fish one day with Miklan, and we found him trying to run on it the next day. He’s absolutely ridiculous some days.” 

Sylvain froze as he heard about that particular anecdote, trying not to let himself think about being pushed down the steep hill and then hearing his leg snap. Miklan had laughed, strangely enough. Laughed at him before putting on his usual--

Felix’s hand was snaking across to his plate, and the motion caught Sylvain’s attention enough to snap him from his thoughts, and he quickly swatted at his hand, even as Felix grinned and pulled one of the dangos to his own plate, nibbling on it. Sylvain frowned before stealing a piece of meat from Felix’s plate in return, popping it into his mouth.

“You’re not--”

Sylvain’s nose wrinkled as he looked at Felix, manners and a hatred of wasting food the only thing keeping him from scraping the half-chewed mess of meat off of his tongue. It was game-y and tough, and it took him a few moments to chew, even amid the laughter from his friends. He only barely relaxed as he saw the amused reaction on Felix’s face, especially as he quietly snorted, even if his eyes were the softest that he had seen them since practically before Glenn had been killed. 

“I tried to tell you you wouldn’t like it,” Felix said after a moment, and Sylvain finally swallowed, putting a hand over his heart. 

“Betrayed, I say. You have betrayed my trust and tried to poison me.”

“You’ve betrayed yourself. You know you don’t like much of what I enjoy. This is your own fault. Next time, pay more attention to what you shove in your mouth,” Felix said, voice dry as ever, even as he offered Sylvain a carrot from his plate, which Sylvain gratefully took before sipping at some water. 

“So, I take it you’re friends with those three?”

It seemed as though the red-headed girl had finally looked up from her tart, and Sylvain nodded slightly as he glanced at Felix, Ingrid, and Dimitri. “Yeah, you could say that. We’ve known each other since we were kids. I’m Gautier, Sylvain Gautier. My house is really far north. Felis is the closest to me with Fraldarius territory,” he said before shrugging and turning back to his food. He could already feel the brief return to lucidity starting to fade, but he wanted to get some sort of food into his system, even if the spiced dago was making his stomach want to turn over, or perhaps it was the Gronder fox from Felix instead. Regardless, he took a few small bites, ignoring the reply from the girl and eventually just resting his head on Felix’s shoulder again after a moment. The conversation didn’t seem to die down too badly, with Ingrid’s voice seemingly picking up the slack, though Sylvain was tired enough that he couldn’t quite keep track of the individual words. 

He had nearly dozed off when he felt fingers curl into his hair, without the tug of joints in gauntlets. It was an unusual sensation, both because he didn’t usually have his hair played with, and because that meant that it would have to be Felix playing with his hair, unless someone had wandered up behind him and started playing with it. Still, it was a pleasing sensation, and he couldn’t help the very quiet hum as the hand curled slightly and the nails gently scratched along his scalp, just behind his ear. The movements stopped at the quiet noise, but after a moment, they resumed. The gentle little tugs helped to keep him awake enough that he could manage a few more bites of the dago, though even that was asking a little much for him as that ended fairly soon as well. 

“You need to get some sleep. It’s disgusting, you’re even drooling on my shirt.”

Sylvain frowned, feeling the hand move away from his hair, and he looked up at Felix, frowning for a few moments before sitting up straighter, rubbing some of the drowsy sleep from his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep. Whatever. If you think I’m so disgusting, I’ll leave now,” he said, trying to make his voice sound teasing, but he couldn’t get the words quite light enough or twist on his tongue right, and so they just fell flat as he stood up. Immediately, the conversation went cold, and one of them, the redhead--Annette? Sylvain seemed to remember her being introduced to him with that name--shook her head quickly, looking up from her sorbet finally to look at him. 

“We don’t think that at all. We just--”

Sylvain shook his head quickly, forcing a smile onto his face and feeling his face fall into the familiar, casual grin he had learned and perfected so many years ago. “No, baby, please. I meant it as a joke. Don’t look like that, someone as pretty as you should never look so sad as that,” he said, instantly retreating into flirtation, and he glanced away after a moment, looking between Felix and Dimitri beside him before carefully stepping back over the bench. “I’m just tired, I promise. I’ll be good as new in the morning, after I get some rest,” he added, just to try and further reassure them before he picked up his plate, nudged Felix’s shoulder gently, before walking off with it and setting it with the other dirty dishes, and making his way to his room. 

Clearly he needed some proper rest. Already, it was the first day, and he was already starting to ruin relationships that he couldn’t afford to ruin so easily. He might not have intended it that way, but it was certainly how it came out, and it was certainly how things ended up. He just hoped that he would feel better in the morning, when he wouldn’t have to worry as much about dinner going wrong, and things could be smoothed over in their classes. That would be for the best. Hopefully the other Lions that he didn’t really know would forgive him for being less personable, too. 

* * *

The next day came sooner than Sylvain might have liked, but it was long enough that he was feeling better than he had the night before. He felt human, which was more than he had honestly expected, and at least he didn’t feel as though he was going to keel over like he had the previous day. He still felt strangely weak when he went to train, as though the lance that he knew was lighter than the one he trained with at home was far heavier than what he could lift. He quickly made some sort of excuse before disappearing to his room, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with his very joints, but even that faded within a few days. Just a cold. That’s all it had been, clearly. While his reputation had been a touch tarnished, he was the same as he always had been. He flirted with girls, ruined his chances for a proper match, made sure that his grades were good enough to be passable but not good enough to note, and that was that. Life was good for the next few weeks as he settled into the grueling schedule of life at the Officer’s Academy, trying not to think of the way it was a final countdown before he was trapped in the far north of Gautier territory with only his parents for company. 

Life at the Academy was fine, and good. Everything was going well. 

And then, like all good things in his life, it broke and fell apart.


	2. Disappearances

CHAPTER 2: DISAPPEARANCES

CERULEAN HORIZONS

GREAT TREE MOON, 1180

“This is boring. You should seriously just forget about this stuffy work and come train, or something,” Sylvain said, making himself an absolute menace as he stretched out across the table, books surrounding him and Felix as he tried desperately to distract him. It got him a quill to the forehead before Felix pushed him aside, sighing softly. 

“We have this military tactics paper due on Monday. I need to finish it. You go train on your own or go track down the Boar to train with him. You’ve been slacking on your training for weeks now. Just don’t forget that you should finish your paper,” Felix said, voice dry before he looked up at Sylvain, frowning at him for a moment before glancing at the piles of paper and parchment around them. “Have you even started it?”

Sylvain laughed, shrugging. “What, the one assigned from last week? It’s in the bag. Don’t worry about it. But you need to stop working so hard, seriously. Just come along for, like, thirty minutes.” Sylvain grinned, leaning towards Felix before whining as Felix pushed him back across the table. 

“No. I need to finish this paper. Then we have Hanneman’s logic and philosophy paper.”

Sylvain couldn’t help the sigh, standing up and starting to pace, walking around to the other side of the table to look over Felix’s shoulder. He finally felt better after days of feeling weak every time he tried to start training, and so instead had filled his days with the papers and homework, working honestly too far ahead, and now that he was fine, Felix was trying to be _responsible_. He couldn’t believe it. He walked to Felix’s other side, trying not to tap his leg or end up too annoying, but clearly it wasn’t working as he soon ended up collapsing as Felix kicked his leg out from under him. 

“Seriously. Stop it. Go look for the boar. And finish Hanneman’s paper. Goddess, you’re a menace some days.”

Felix had a point, and Sylvain grimaced as he leaned his head back against the floor of the library, waiting for the throbbing in his knee to fade before he’d try to track down Dimitri. “I already finished the paper, both of them. They’re not that difficult. Hanneman’s is fascinating. There’s a lovely treatise on logic tucked away with the Faith books, by the way. It’s not with the Reason ones. But fine. Be stuffy. I’ll see you at dinner if you don’t catch me at the training grounds first.”

There was a soft huff from Felix, and Syvain grinned before he finally stood up, and he ruffled Felix’s hair quickly. Ignoring the squawk and swipe from Felix as he jumped back towards the door, Sylvain laughed before bolting down the hall before Felix decided to run after him.

“Hey, Dedue, where’s his Highness?” Sylvain was rather surprised to see Dedue without Dimitri around, and he felt a small curl of worry in his stomach at the change from the routine that he had grown accustomed to. 

“His Highness was sent out on a training mission with the leaders of the other two houses and a battalion of the Knights of Seiros. He should be back tomorrow night,” Dedue said, after a momentary pause as he stood up, making the small, pink posies he was planting more visible. The delicate flowers didn’t relax Sylvain, though, and the worry he had over the prince certainly didn’t abate at all. 

Dimitri was out, and hadn’t told the Lions at all. Or at least, he hadn’t told Sylvain at all. Sylvain forced himself to take a deep breath, especially as Dedue’s eyebrows took that concerned tilt that was usually just reserved for Dimitri, and Sylvain shook his head quickly. “Thanks. I must have missed the memo. Nice flowers,” he said, offering Dedue a brittle smile that luckily the Duscar man didn’t recognize as entirely false, or at least didn’t call him out on, and Sylvain quickly turned, leaving the stuffy greenhouse and immediately turning to the dormitories. He should go to the training yard. He told Felix he was doing that regardless, and that would help get his mind off of things. Felix really had been right in that he had been slacking the past few weeks, and he should change that. 

His feet continued up the stairs to the second floor of the dormitory, continuing down the hallway, before finding that his feet wouldn’t move past Felix’s room. Felix wouldn’t be there, not for another hour or so, and Sylvain glanced at the doorway before frowning and making his way in, stealing a pillow immediately and burying his face in it, taking a deep breath of the familiar scent. That helped to settle the knot of tension in his stomach, and he quietly collected that, as well as the blankets there. 

Once dumped unceremoniously onto his bed, Sylvain repeated the gesture with Dimitri’s pillows and blankets, though they received more care to be separate from the pile of Felix’s bedding, and then he quietly made his way down the hall to Ingrid’s room. He needed to include her things as well, though he didn’t particularly want to think about why, or why having those in particular helped to soothe the anxious knot in his stomach, and he carefully knocked on her door to make sure she wasn’t in there. When it was clear her room was empty as well, he nabbed her blanket, burying his face in the fabric and taking a deep breath of the familiar scent of stables and cloves as he walked back into his room. 

Sylvain already started to feel better, his worries sliding from his skin like melting frost as he carefully arranged the blankets on his bed, face buried in Felix’s pillow, furniture arranged to make it as difficult as possible to—

“Goddess, fuck, Sylvain, what the actual living fuck?”

Sylvain frowned, looking up from the comfortable pile of blankets, sighing as he saw an open door, before he buried his nose against Felix’s pillow once more, tugging the blankets over him better as well. Felix could deal, and he could close the door afterwards, too. 

“Sylvain, what the actual fuck. Why the fuck is your desk blocking the walkway? You’re going to break your stupid neck.”

Felix apparently wasn’t dealing with it, and Sylvain couldn’t help the soft growl as he tried to ignore the continued rant of mostly swears. He’d be gone soon, hopefully, or just shut up instead. Apparently that wasn’t the case when the blanket was snatched from him, and Sylvain couldn’t help but wince and curl in on himself, suddenly exposed as he was. 

“Sylvain?”

Sylvain finally cracked an eye open, looking up at Felix with a weak glare before reaching out to try and grab the blanket from his hands. “Gimme. I found it, so it’s mine, clearly.”

“Yeah, from my _room_.” Felix frowned, folding up the fabric as he took a step back from Sylvain’s outstretched hand, looking over the state of the bed and the room. When it was clear that Sylvain couldn’t reach the blanket without actually getting up, the ginger man sighed, looking around the room properly for the first time since he had arrived and started settling in for the evening. 

His eyes widened at the absolute maze that it had turned into, with the desk blocking the door so someone had to crawl over or under it just to get in, and then they had to watch out for the wardrobe and trunk that were precariously perched right after, meaning that you’d have to be even more careful walking around. The rest of the furniture was similarly placed, making it an absolute minefield to get to his bed and the nest of blankets and pillows he stole from Felix, Dimitri, and Ingrid’s room. Sylvain couldn’t help the slight stab of concern in his chest, wondering what had gotten into himself and entirely understanding the concerned look on Felix’s face, hidden under layers of protective armor. He wasn’t normally like this, and he didn’t know why on earth he was acting like this, and he carefully shifted, sitting up and trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. 

“I think I need to see Manuela,” he murmured after a moment. 

“No.”

Sylvain frowned at the snap from Felix, and he looked at him before motioning towards the room, only to get the blanket shoved in his face. 

“No. You’re not going to see her at all. Goodness knows you’d just try to sleep with her or something stupid. Just...clearly you’re homesick or something—”

“Worried about Dimitri,” Sylvain murmured, glancing up at Felix as he pulled the blanket against his chest, trying not to hate himself for getting Felix concerned like this. He couldn’t remember the last time Felix had been concerned at all, let alone openly worried like this. “I was worried about Dimitri when I heard he was out on a training mission with the other house leaders.”

Felix’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Sylvain before glancing around the room, the same concerned angle to his brows unchanging as he swept his gaze across the room. It was a long few moments before he finally spoke up again. “Dimitri will be fine. You shouldn’t go to Manuela. You’ll end up with a stalker the rest of the year. You’re worried about Dimitri, and when he’s back tomorrow, you’ll feel better. Who’s pillows and things did you steal, other than mine?” 

Sylvain sighed softly as he looked around the room before shrugging. “Dimitri’s and Ingrid’s.”

“Ingrid’s?”

Sylvain rolled his eyes before nodding as he tried to force his limbs to relax, but Felix’s facade was quickly fading into something honestly concerned, and the worry on Felix’s face had Sylvain on edge as well. “I said that. I know she’ll be furious, but...it feels better,” he said before tugging one of the Felix-pillows against his face before feeling a warm body start to press against his body. He turned, seeing Felix settle into the bed next to him. There was a somewhat uncomfortable look on Felix’s face, but he was still there, and the knot of tension and worry started bleeding out of Sylvain’s chest as he pressed his face against Felix’s chest. 

“If you mention this to anyone, I’ll stab you.” 

“I won’t. When was the last time we did this, anyways? Ten years?”

Felix sighed softly before relaxing slightly and shifting them so that Sylvain was pressed better against him, and Sylvain couldn’t help but press his nose to the base of his throat, breathing deep the familiar smell of Felix that helped to relax him. “It would have to be. This is what children do. No self-respecting swordsman would cuddle like this with anyone. It’s ridiculous that I’m doing this now.”

Sylvain just cuddled closer to Felix, relaxing until he was practically dead weight on Felix’s body. “But you are. And I appreciate it,” he mumbled against Felix’s skin before finally falling asleep, feeling better than he had since he had heard about Dimitri’s trip away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but hopefully it's alright. Still just establishing a few things, but soon it'll start in with the events of the game, and things should go faster after these chapters have the basic world and everything established. I hope everyone's enjoying it so far. I enjoyed the comments, and seeing how many people have reacted to it so far! Next week (should) come with another update!


	3. Reappearances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri finally reappears after disappearing to the training with the Knights of Seiros and the other House Leaders. Sylvain, luckily, is able to manage a discussion with him, however that doesn't necessarily mean that they see eye-to-eye on things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...really do apologize for not updating this in literally six months. I've been vaguely chipping away at it, however between finishing up grad school (yay! i've got a masters in museum studies!) and the pandemic, things have been a little spotty for me with regards to writing. Finally, I've been getting properly back to it now, especially since I just finished my play-through of Azure Moon, so now while I'm playing through Crimson Flower, I'm starting to write this more. Hopefully the updates will be more frequent! Thanks for sticking around, if you're still going to read it!

CHAPTER 3: REAPPEARANCES

CERULEAN HORIZONS

GREAT TREE MOON, 1180

  
  


Apparently, despite the fact that neither of them had eaten dinner, and they were both terrified of Ingrid’s wrath when she found out that Sylvain had stolen her blankets and pillows, they ended up falling asleep more deeply than they had intended to, sleeping through the night entirely. Felix woke up too early. He was always up too early, which dragged Sylvain up too early as well, but at least that meant that they were able to put th e  early morning to use and train for a while. 

It was cool, though still warm enough that they started in their shirtsleeves, the morning dew helping to keep the dust of the grounds from kicking up too much already. Sylvain walked over to the lances, feeling over the rough wooden staff before tugging his gloves out of his belt. His lances at home would be well-made enough that he wouldn’t need gloves, but these ones would give him a fist full of splinters if he wasn’t careful.

“Do you want me to leave you on an equal field?”

Sylvain looked up from where he was picking between the lances, and he frowned at Felix for a moment. “What are you talking about? Go get a sword. I thought we were training to get my mind off of things and all.” He wanted to go back to bed, could already feel his attention drifting bac k  to the safe little nest he still had in his room. They were going to have to put everything back at some point, probably in the middle of the day when Ingrid had no chance of seeing them fix her room, and giving them enough time to wash them, but it was still there for now. He could just go back and sleep for a while longer. 

He winced as he felt a hard swat of wood against his leg, nearly causing his knee to buckle, and he looked over at Felix, making a face, and Felix rolled his eyes before walking out to the dusty flagstones of the training grounds. “Get out of your head. We’re training, not thinking. You’re too out of practice if you’re thinking like that.”

“How are you always right?” he asked, rolling his eyes before adjusting his grip on the lance in his hands before stepping out to join Felix as well. 

Felix just laughed, rolling his eyes before he settled back into his usual stance. This felt familiar, and Sylvain tightened his grip on the lance as he settled into the stance of his own. Sparring with Felix had always been as easy as breathing, and as Felix started towards him, sword extended and spinning out of the way as he parried, it still felt as though he was breathing with the same lungs as Felix. His feet stepped back, allowing his shoulders to tip to the side as Felix’s hands angled the sword down. Felix’s shoulder dropped as his hands thrust the spear towards him. They continued, still moving in tandem and around in the dance of theirs. It was clear that neither of them were particularly trying to overpower the other, instead letting themselves get to know the other and re-learn the way their weapons felt in their hands. The movements and the dance didn’t even feel like a chore, not like Sylvain knew that it did with others, instead feeling as natural as if he were running through training drills on his own, though better as he was able to see the way Felix moved and be able to adjust on the fly, instead of having to imagine someone to fight against. 

Eventually, the sun made its way higher in the sky, and while the two of them had plenty of bruises on their bodies, Sylvain and Felix were still dancing together fairly well. However, the pleasant morning had to come to an end at some point as Ingrid walked in, distracting Sylvain enough as he looked up that Felix caught him hard in the stomach and he ended up doubled over, gasping in pain. 

“Flames, Sylvain, are you alright?” Felix asked, the training weapons clattering to the ground, and Sylvain groaned softly, nodding. 

“Yeah, Fe. I’m fine,” Sylvain, coughing for a moment before glancing over at Ingrid. “Good morning, Ingrid.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes, though she nodded, picking up a lance of her own. “I’m glad to see that you’re actually training for once. I can’t remember the last time I saw you training. You’ll never be a good knight if you neglect it. No wonder Felix was able to get the better of you,” she said, and Sylvain couldn’t help but feel slightly deflated at that. He glanced down at the lance at his feet before he nodded. 

“Right, yeah. That’s why I was here, anyways. Need to get back into training more,” he said, adjusting the grip on his lance. “Though, really, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just end up in the North and having kids and all. I’ll have soldiers and knights to do the dirty work for me, so really, I don’t need to bother with this at all.” He smiled at Ingrid, ignoring the huff from her before he glanced at Felix, who had also rolled his eyes and turned away from him as well. Obviously .  He could feel his face drop as Felix turned away from him, and he shifted. “I’m...going to go head out. Get cleaned up, see if Dimitri’s finally back and maybe study or something like that,” Sylvain murmured before turning to put the lance away. 

“Sylvain.”

Sylvain sighed and turned towards Felix, forcing an easy grin on his face and hating just how easy it was to slide the mask back over his features. “What’s the matter? You and Ingrid could continue to train. She’s been picking up a sword recently, anyways.”

Felix’s eyes darkened as he looked at Sylvain, eyes narrowing in concern just in that subtle way that he always did, in the way that no one would likely notice outside of him after so long paying attention to him. “You should stay. I wasn’t finished yet.”

“You’re never finished, and I’d hate to just keep holding you back, Fe. It’s fine, promise.” 

Ingrid looked between the two of them, opening her mouth to speak, to say something, but Sylvain turned away, not wanting to wait for whatever either of them had to say, and he tugged off the well-worn gloves, shoving them into his belt as he walked down to the main dormitory level. It should be fine, and he ignored the tugging desire to go back and apologize for Felix for leaving him alone. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before, and this way he could get the various blankets and things washed up before too late. The laundry would help him settle, at least, and it would also help him feel as though he was still training, somewhat. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it was activity. 

Between the nice weather, and the free day of activity they had, the grounds were fairly busy, while the hall to his room was almost empty. It was remarkably nice. Hopefully he wouldn’t run into any—

Sylvain ran into someone, naturally. He stumbled from the collision, the massive pile of blankets dropping from his hands as the two of them went sprawling onto the floor. “Oh, saints, I’m so sorry,” he said, quickly looking up at the other and frowning before moving to try and help them. “I can’t believe I didn’t see a beauty like you. Please, let me help you up,” he said, trying to help the lavender-haired person to their feet, just to have them shake off his help. 

“No, no, I’m perfectly fine, though I appreciate the chivalry. Unfortunately, I don’t think that compliment is quite what you intended,” the person said, brushing himself off and fixing his hair before offering a tight smile to Sylvain, offering out a hand. “My name is Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, heir to Duke Gloucester of the Leicester Alliance. I doubt that a commoner like yourself will have heard of it, though I’d be more than happy to give you a primer on how to better comport yourself at such an upstanding institution such as this one.”

Sylvain blinked at the language, and the offer, and he quickly held up his hands, shaking his head. “Oh, no, I’m aware of what the Leicester Alliance is. I’m from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. My father’s Margrave Gautier. Sylvain Jose Gautier, pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, and Lorenz’s face lit up with a bright smile. 

“Oh, Faerghus. It’s such a lovely country. Tell me, how has Fhirdiad been recently? I admit I haven’t been able to travel there for quite some time. I went to the Sorcery Academy, but then the rebellions prevented me from continuing my studies,” Lorenz said, and he started helping Sylvain with collecting together the spilled laundry. Sylvain hummed softly before shrugging. 

“It’s still Fhirdiad. Things have been rough since the King died, however we’ll make it work. That Academy’s still doing good, last I heard, and hopefully it’ll pick up a bit more once things settle down more when Dimitri assumes the throne and all,” Sylvain said with a small smile, and he pulled the last of the blankets close into his arms. “It was nice to meet you, Lorenz. Sorry for running into you again.”

“No matter. Just watch where you are going next time, and we shouldn’t have any more issues. I hope that you have a good afternoon,” he said, and Sylvain hummed for a moment before quickly disappearing to the small laundry room. Lorenz was...strange, but seemed nice enough, he supposed.

Laundry was a soothing activity. Sylvain knew that not many nobles did it, even including whatever minor noble omegas and women, but he enjoyed it regardless. It was quiet with laundry, and while the soap stung at his hands at times, the repetitive motions were comforting in the way they made his arms ache. And, even better, no one expected him to be flirting, or even here in the first place, so he could just relax and let the mask fall. 

“Sylvain!”

Sylvain tensed even before he felt the heavy, gloved hand hit his shoulder, and he winced. Of course Dimitri would somehow find him here, and get here now. He looked down at the soap a moment longer before immediately putting a smile on and turning to hug him. As annoyed as he was for having the brief break interrupted, seeing Dimitri whole and in one piece—though, he had a small cut in his right sleeve—had him relaxing more than he had been earlier. Dimitri hugged him tight in return, almost bone-crushing in its comfort, and Sylvain pressed his face to Dimitri’s neck for a moment, letting himself settle into the brief comfort for a moment. 

“I can’t believe you left without saying anything. That’s utterly stupid, and you should have brought someone with you. At least Felix or Ingrid,” he said, pulling away and putting on a mock-disappointed expression, more of an annoyed pout, even if he wanted to actually be upset with Dimitri. He wasn’t Felix, he didn’t think that he could truly be angry with anyone, other than perhaps his father and whomever decided to make Crests so important. 

Dimitri laughed softly, pulling Sylvain back close again. “It was fine, Sylvain. Honestly, you can be worse than Felix sometimes, and that is saying something," he said. Sylvain laughed softly, shrugging before relaxing and turning back to the laundry when Dimitri let go of him. 

"I don't mean anything of it, not really, but it's just...I was worried about you, that's all. You left without saying anything, that's all."

"I knew Ingrid would argue, that's all. Felix would either be annoyed or just..." Dimitri sighed before shrugging. "You know how he's been these last few years. It's difficult for all of us. I'm sure he cares in his own way, just as you do. Tell me, though, have you met the mercenary that saved us?"

Sylvain dropped the soap and the washboard into the large basin of water, and his eyes widened as he looked back at Dimitri, opening his mouth to ask what happened, when Dimitri held up a hand. 

"That's right. Let me explain properly, before you turn into Ingrid."

"Dimitri. I'm not as bad as Ingrid. You're the  _ Prince _ , though."

"I was fine. The Knights of Seiros had accompanied us, as did Edelgard and Claude, the Golden Deer house leader," Dimitri said, and he glanced down at the water and the laundry in Sylvain's hands, a frown crossing his features and twisting his eyes. "That embroidery. Sylvain, why are you washing my blankets?"

Sylvain waved the question off, sighing softly. Of course he was washing the blue lion blankets that Dimitri would recognize. "Your story first, and then maybe I'll give you mine."

"Very well, but I expect you to tell me, because it looks like you have all of our blankets with you," he said. Sylvain rolled his eyes before continuing to wash them. 

"We were attacked by bandits, strangely enough. Claude ran away—"

"Coward."

"Or possibly smart. After all, he is primarily an archer, so it is understandable that he wouldn't want to be involved in things if they're terribly up close and personal to him. Perhaps I'll try to offer him some guidance with a sword or a lance if he's lacking in such skills," Dimitri said, quietly musing over that, and Sylvain huffed. "Oh, right, yes, of course. Well, we ended up in a little village. Remire Village, if I remember correctly. A little further than the local village, but not too terribly far. Close enough to walk in a small group, though an army would have a difficult time through some of the passes. But it turns out that Jeralt the Blade Breaker was there, working as a mercenary now. And he has a son."

Sylvain thought over it, trying to remember if he had heard of this person before, before finally just glancing up at Dimitri, leaning against the basin. "Why do I care about either of those people, Dima?"

Dimitri sighed, shrugging as he thought over it before sighing and just finally shrugging. "I don't know, I suppose. Apparently Jeralt was the Captain of the Knights of Seiros before disappearing. According to Aloïse, everyone thought he was dead. But he's not, and he has a son. You should have seen him fight, it was...absolutely stunning. Felix would even be one to admire it."

Sylvain huffed a laugh at that thought, not quite able to imagine Felix properly admiring anything, not anymore after Glenn died years ago. "That good, huh? Sounds like you've got a bit of a crush, Your Highness," he said, a teasing smile on his face as he glanced over at Dimitri. The instant presence of the sweep of a blush against Dimitri's cheeks was quite the reward for the teasing, even more than the spluttering response that didn't even sound like words. "You know, you  _ are  _ allowed to have crushes on people. I..." Sylvain frowned for a moment, his eyebrows dropping slightly as he looked fairly intently at an annoying stain on the edge of Dimitri's blanket—blood, maybe, or perhaps some spilled wine from ages ago—as he started trying to work it out of the warm woolen fibers. "I think your father would want you to be sweet on someone like that."

"I'm not about to go flirting with everyone I see, Sylvain."

Sylvain overstepped. He couldn't help the way he flinched, his shoulders instantly tightening at the harsh tone in Dimitri's voice, keeping him from being able to hear any sort of the levity he was trying to get, and he just took a deep breath, shrugging and forcing his posture to relax. "I wasn't suggest—"

"I know exactly what you were suggesting. You flirt with everything, and I'm not interested in doing that, especially not with a fine warrior such as that mercenary gentleman."

Sylvain huffed softly, rolling his eyes. "Technically, he's not a gentleman unless he owns land, at the very least."

"He's more of a gentleman than you are, some days."

Sylvain looked up, glaring at Dimitri, mouth almost twisting into a snarl at that, but he forced his expression to relax, not wanting to lash out too badly at him. He knew the rumors that swirled around him. He had even planted some of them. He shouldn't be upset when Dimitri threw them back in his face, even if it still hurt that Dimitri, who had known him as long as he could know anyone, just believed all of that and then didn't even seem to care about whether or not that was just a front that he needed to put on in front of people. "At least I have my title, and so I can provide for someone. But regardless, I just said you could be sweet on someone. I didn't say you needed to follow in my skirt-chasing ways and all of that," he said, sighing softly before pulling the blanket out of the water and starting to wring out the excess water before tracking down a place to hang it before he'd walk it to the lines outside. 

"Fine. You should simply be more considerate of people, that's all. That's all I meant, Sylvain. I frequently hear about the ladies you have unintentionally insulted or hurt because of your actions," he said, and Sylvain shrugged. 

"It's not my fault. Everyone knows the rumors. It's not their fault if they think that they could be the magical one to fix me or something like that."

"Still."

"Still, you can shut up about it, Dimitri. I'm not about to change now. I won't be able to choose my partner, so I might as well have some fun now."

"Sylvain, that's not what I mean."

"Just stop. I was looking in your room for some books, and I ended up spilling some tea across the bed sheets. I offered to wash Ingrid's when I passed her in the hallway. That's all."

Dimitri looked like he wanted to question it further, but at least he seemed to re-think it after a moment or two. "Very well. I would appreciate it if you refrained from entering my room without permission in the future. As it is, thank you for cleaning the sheets. That's very responsible of you. And you always do such a good job with it, too. The mercenary's staying at the monastery, by the way. Perhaps the two of you could spar or something and get to know each other at some point. I think they're being shown around the campus today, if you wish to meet them."

Sylvain nodded slightly, closing his eyes before nodding slightly. "Right. Yeah. Okay, then." He turned over to shove the laundry into a basket, hitching it up and settling it against his hip so that he could walk it outside. It never worked as well as it had for his nurse, but it worked well enough, and it served the point of getting him out of the conversation with Dimitri. He didn’t want to deal with some mercenary, and he certainly didn’t want to deal with sparring with someone he didn’t know at all.


	4. First Tests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Classes have properly begun, forcing Sylvain to juggle the fine line between disappointing the professor and revealing how good of a student he wants to be. Additionally, it means that it's time for the first mock-battle between the houses, in an effort to evaluate everyone's skills at the beginning of the year. Even more work for Sylvain, who has still had difficulties adjusting to life at the Monastery.

CHAPTER 4: FIRST TESTS

CERULEAN HORIZONS

GREAT TREE MOON, 1180

  
  


It didn’t take long before Sylvain both met the mercenary that had caught Dimitri’s attention and immediately got on their bad side, somehow. He couldn’t understand why, considering he was doing the work asked of him, even if he continued the slight slacking on the training front. It certainly wasn’t as good as he knew that he could do, not with the papers that had been assigned on military tactics, but they wouldn’t get him sent home for being too poor of a student, while also not being good enough to send commendation letters to his father. He didn’t want his father to have a reason to pretend to be proud of him, so he wouldn’t give him an academically gifted son. There wasn’t much Sylvain could do to hide his skill with a lance, and so he simply refused to train more than absolutely necessary, or at any times other than at night, after most had ended up sleeping. 

And, naturally, during the quieter evenings, he wooed women who only cared about him and his crest. 

It worked fine. The ten days passed quickly enough, with the professor—Byleth, apparently—settling into their position and swiftly becoming one of the most skilled professors that Sylvain ever had, even here at the Monastery, regardless of the other professors he had earlier in the month. He was...unnerving, though, but hey, not everyone was perfect. It didn’t bother him too much, though. He got used to it. Dimitri still ended up flustered around him. Felix was just as prickly as ever. The more things change, and all. 

With the announcement of Byleth’s professorship, however, they were quickly informed that there would be a mock-battle between the three classes. And Byleth was requiring that he fight in it. 

“Professor, honestly, there’s far better choices than me. You’re only allowed, what, six students?”

“Four, including Dimitri. You’re nearly as good of a lance fighter. I need you on the front lines.” Byleth’s voice was just as flat as always as they looked over their notes after class, and Sylvain huffed before glancing around the room where everyone was starting to gather things up. 

“Felix or Dedue would be just as good of an option, if not better. You don’t need me, Professor,” Sylvain said, trying not to sound too annoyed, and he sighed before running a hand through his hair. “Look, who else have you picked?”

“I am allowed five units. The two required units are myself and Dimitri. You, Mercedes, and Ashe are the additional choices,” Byleth said, looking up from the chicken-scratch notes. “Is there a problem?”

Sylvain frowned as he looked at the notes and then back at the classroom. “Mercedes?”

“She’s a healer.”

And an archer. Both useful to supplement the three front-line fighters that comprised him, Dimitri, and Byleth. “Why not Felix or Dedue?”

“Felix is solitary. Dedue focuses on Dimitri.”

Both true. Sylvain could work easily with everyone, and took orders far better than Felix did, even if he was somewhat better than when he was younger. He could be trusted to actually do as ordered and not sacrifice it because Dimitri was seemingly in danger, or he didn’t want to work with someone. Byleth, unfortunately, had a point. 

“Fine, fine. I’ll do this.”

Byleth nodded, or, really, inclined their head a half inch before turning back to collect the paperwork. Sylvain took that as his cue to leave, and he turned away, grabbing his bag of books and papers before starting to walk out of the room. 

“I promise I won’t be dead weight.”

Sylvain glanced up at the voice from beside the door, seeing the grey-topped Ashe, and he shook his head quickly. “I wasn’t worried about that at all, to be honest. If anything, I was worried about me being dead weight,” he said, before shrugging and stretching out his arms. “I suppose I’ll make an effort though.”

Ashe’s face immediately turned almost murderous, if such a thing were possible at all, and Sylvain couldn’t help the momentary flinch from the weight of the gaze. “You should take this more seriously. The professor’s reputation and position rests on us. We need to impress the other staff here in order to ensure that we’re given the support that we’ll need throughout the year. We have to put on a good face.”

Sylvain nodded, unable but to help that, and he pulled his books closer. “Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll...make sure I do my best,” he said before quickly disappearing, trying not to think about how he’d balance not letting himself get too much attention, while also not making him or the rest of his team look too poorly. Ashe was right, which he knew, and he also knew that Ashe wasn’t giving him enough credit if he thought that he’d simply throw the fight just because he didn’t want to work. He wasn’t  _ Hilda _ , after all. Somehow, she managed to go to even fewer training sessions than he did. 

So. Training. He needed to actually make sure that he’d be able to hold his own in the fight. It would be difficult to keep his head down and keep himself from standing out as a good fighter, but at least there would be Dimitri to steal some of the spotlight, and whomever else would be chosen for the Golden Deer and the Black Eagles. Claude and Hilda, at least. Edelgard and Hubert as well. Probably Ferdinand would, if his insistence to push his way towards the front of any joint class was anything to go by. 

Sylvain sighed, pushing the thoughts from his mind as he pushed his hand through his hair, readjusting where he was standing in front of the training dummy before resuming the stances and attacks that he had learned before he could properly speak, and had been practicing since he could stand and hold a stick in his hands. 

“Do you need someone to fight with?”

Sylvain looked up at the voice, trying not to admit that they had caught him off-guard and jumped, but they had, and he supposed he was lucky that he wasn’t as bad as Dimitri in blindly attacking whatever tried to hurt him from time to time. He looked at Lorenz for a moment before shrugging finally and stretching out. 

“No, I was...just thinking about leaving anyways. I didn’t notice you walk in.”

“Well, that might be because you were rather distracted, to be honest,” Lorenz said, carefully pulling off his jacket and draping it over the railing that separated the equipment from the floor, and he looked back at Sylvain. “You seemed to be remarkably focused upon your training. That’s a rather admirable trait in nobili—”

“Please don’t mention me being a noble again,” Sylvain said with a sigh, leaning against his lance and starting to catch his breath now that he was drifting down from the manic high of trying to prove himself to the ghost of his father and Miklan standing over him. 

Lorenz frowned at Sylvain before nodding. “Very well. I merely meant to applaud your dedication and focus, that’s all. Would you like a sparring partner? I find that they can be much more responsive than the dummies that are set up around the edges. You might want something like that before the mock-battle at the end of the month.”

Sylvain huffed a laugh, glancing back at the dummies—a few still even had painted faces and clothes visible on them, and he had half a mind to make some quippy comment—before finally just nodding and glancing briefly at the sky. “I suppose I have time to spar with you, then,” he said before shifting to stand up straighter. “Goodness knows it’ll be useful to know what we’ll be up against at the end of the month.”

Lorenz raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. “Oh, I suppose you could say something like that, however I intend to be as conservative as possible right now. I would hate to hurt you outside of a mock-battle. No, we will take it easily enough, and that way we can work on form and get to know each other, as well as practice.”

“I can’t remember the last time I was able to take it easy during training, but alright then. You’re not going to get too dirty, are you?” Sylvain said, grinning faintly as he watched Lorenz don leather gloves of his own, and he settled into position as Lorenz turned to him. 

“Unfortunately, part of being a good noble is being willing to get dirty. Just because I take pride in my appearance, unlike some people, doesn’t mean that I am unwilling to get dirty. I’m not Ferdinand, after all,” Lorenz said, half-chuckling, and Sylvain did as well, mostly in how silly that comparison was. 

“Are you kidding? I’ve seen Ferdinand muck out the stables. I think you’re thinking of Hilda instead,” Sylvain shot bad as he lunged, lance point directed towards Lorenz’s stomach. Lorenz laughed before knocking the point aside, returning with an attempted blow of his own. 

“No, Hilda is close friends with Claude, for some reason .  Of course she’d be willing to get her hands dirty alongside him, in a fashion. Rather disappointing for a lady of such fine pedigree as she is, but it can’t be helped.” Lorenz sighed, rolling his eyes, and they fell silent as they resumed exchanging blows, occasionally pausing as they exchanged tips and lessons, as well as re-worked areas when they were sticky and their movements sloppy. Sylvain easily relaxed into it, honestly not remembering the last time he had sparred with someone and they hadn’t tried to beat him into submission as though that would help ease the grief in their soul . 

It was nearly an hour by the time the both of them were entirely tired and sitting against the side wall, relaxing for a few minutes as they caught their breath and debated whether to continue or not after they managed to actually get their breathing proper again. 

"You are actually good company, and an excellent lance fighter. Clearly I need to improve if I am to keep up with the Blue Lions," Lorenz said after a moment, glancing up at the sky and the clouds gently drifting overhead, and Sylvain hummed softly before shrugging. 

"You're good as well. You have good form, and your strikes are clean. You just need to be more sure of yourself and all, and you'll be a force to be reckoned with," he said, offering Lorenz a smile before almost frowning. "I'm sorry for flirting with you, by the way. It's just...your hair, it's--"

"Similar to how many girls wear it, I know. It's fine, though you weren't terribly polite about it. Didn't even bother to ask me to dinner or anything," Lorenz replied, sighing softly, and Sylvain couldn't help but laugh at the dramatics, though he raised an eyebrow as Lorenz narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm being serious."

Sylvain looked at him for a moment before nodding. "Right, of course. If you want me to ask you to dinner, I'd be happy to. But I'm not...look, I'm not even an Omega."

Lorenz raised an eyebrow—and damn, even with that stupid haircut, he somehow managed to look refined and elegant—before shrugging. "You certainly don't smell like an Alpha, but I suppose miracles can happen," he said, and Sylvain shifted slightly. 

"Late bloomer, that's all. Not uncommon in my family. But I'll still manage to find a wife and make more little lordlings and the like soon enough." 

They fell silent after that, Sylvain wondering if he had sounded just a touch too bitter, or if Lorenz simply thought him crass and annoying. 

"I will be expected to do the same. As will all of the nobility attending this school. If only they would take their positions seriously," Lorenz finally said, voice soft as he thought over it before shrugging and finally standing up, offering Sylvain a hand. "I like you, Sylvain. I think we should have tea at least once a month. Or train. Whichever you prefer, though I insist we do both at some point."

Sylvain blinked at the hand, and then at Lorenz, before finally laughing and nodding. "Sure. Tea it is at some point. Perhaps we'll be able to lament the way the other nobility aren't taking their duties responsibly," he said, and Lorenz nodded, squeezing Sylvain's hand for a moment. 

"You seem like a good person. I look forward to speaking with you more,  _ after  _ the Golden Deer are victorious at the battle at the end of the month."

Sylvain couldn't help but laugh, though he nodded. "If the Golden Deer win, I will be sure that we go on far more tea parties than we will training sessions," he said before clapping Lorenz on the shoulder, looking at him for a moment longer before finally setting his things away and turning to leave, needing to clean up and make sure no one thought he was dead after being tucked away in this corner of the training ground for hours.

The battle came quicker than Sylvain would have liked, even if it was almost two weeks after the Professor came to the Academy. He felt nowhere near ready to be able to do this and manage the masquerade and appearances that he was only capable of barely adequate work, but he still wasn't about to end up being the weak link, if only so that Ashe wouldn't blame himself if they lost, and if only so that he couldn't see what the Professor looked like when they were properly disappointed. 

They had barely any armor, which was frustrating. Some padded jackets, and leather gloves with metallic shells so that they hopefully wouldn't end up breaking any of the fine bones in their hands if they ended up struck too hard. Ashe and Mercedes wouldn't have as big of an issue with that, and the Professor likely wouldn't either, but he and Dimitri probably would. He walked up to the Prince shortly before it began, in the first few minutes before the battle would be called to begin. 

"How are you feeling, Your Highness?" he asked, voice soft as he reached over to fuss with his gauntlets a touch, mostly for the excuse to talk with him and try to keep him from getting too distracted in his own head. The soft, confused noise from Dimitri proved that he was already lost in the rabbits that ran around the trails of memories, and Sylvain offered him a quick smile. "Yes, you. How are you feeling?" he asked again. 

This time, Dimitri seemed to realize what he said, and he smiled weakly before nodding. "I'm fine, thank you. I just slept poorly last night, though it won't affect my performance at all. You and the Professor and everyone don't have anything to worry about at all," he said, and Sylvain couldn't help a faint sigh as he tied the left gauntlet and began on the right. 

"That's not what I care about. You've not been in a fight like this in ages, right?"

"Oh, ah, not really. It's been a very long time, other than the small bouts we have together as a group with the Blue Lions. Before that..." Dimitri shrugged, his hands finally relaxing as he let Sylvain finish tying the gauntlets tight around his wrist. "Before that, I haven't had a practice battle like this since I was a child. Then the Rebellion and everything happened, and I was only in real fights."

Right. Of course. Sylvain had known that, on some level, but he hadn't actually realized what that actually meant as they walked out on to this field, and he was sure that none of the professors would truly realize it either. Even then, Sylvain barely knew what would happen, how Dimitri behaved in battle since his father and family and everyone had died. Felix had fed him scraps when they were younger and he had been plagued with nightmares, and clearly it was bad enough that Felix was convinced that Dimitri was no better than an animal, but Sylvain didn't entirely know. 

"You'll be fine here?"

"Yes. Please don't worry about me, Sylvain. I'm glad you've been taking this seriously. Jeritza mentioned that he's seen you in the training grounds more often than not since the Professor said tha t  you were to join us in this fight. And it’s been admirable that you’ve been working so well with those in the Golden Deer house.”

“Dima.”

Dimitri sighed as Sylvain cut him off, and he dropped a heavy hand onto Sylvain’s shoulder, the padding in the coat not doing anything to keep his knees from almost buckling under the weight of it. “I’m fine. Get into position.”

Sylvain nodded, looking at Dimitri once more before looking out to the edges of the battle field where he could see the rest of the households standing, waiting for Jeralt to give the order to begin, and he settled into the place where he was to begin, adjusting the cuff on his hear that would allow the Professor to give their orders to them, even over the din of the battle to come. While they wouldn’t be terribly necessary for this one, in future battles, and on larger jobs, it would definitely be necessary, as they would often get too far for orders to be simply shouted. Useful bit of arcana, there, as uncomfortable as it was for him to hear the wrong voice so clearly over the battle. 

The moment he settled into the place that the Professor set out for him, the signal was launched, and he kept his eyes open for everyone. He could see Lorenz and Ignatz clearly from where he was standing next to Dimitri, already beginning to move. However, he also knew that the Black Eagles were to the north, just beyond the small copse of trees. 

“Dimitri, you go towards the north. Get to the trees if you’re able to. Ashe, Sylvain, straight towards Lorenz. Mercedes, you’re with me. We’ll head to these trees here.”

And with the professor’s even voice clipping off there, he ran alongside Ashe, pushing himself to get just a touch further ahead than him, still woefully yards away from Lorenz and Ignatz. At least that would mean that the bow wouldn’t end up pricking him quite yet. Lorenz was already running towards the professor, at least, with Ignatz trailing behind. Dorothea, on the other hand, came running from where she had just been hidden behind the trees, already launching some sort of  _ thunder _ spell at Dimitri. He could take it, though. It would still hurt, magic always did, but it wouldn’t be that bad. 

“Sylvain, to Ignatz. Dimitri, Dorothea. Ashe, whichever looks more hurt. Mercedes, you and I on Lorenz.”

Sylvain huffed an agreement, already running towards Ignatz. 

“What? Me? No, Dorothea or Lorenz are right there!”

Sylvain rolled his eyes, already thrusting his lance out, catching Ignatz’s leg, even despite the archer trying to dodge out of the way. He could hear a similar cry from Dorothea not far, as well as Lorenz, and a brief glance over his shoulder had him quickly moving aside as Ashe aimed and loosed an arrow, the head of it actually catching Ignatz on his cheek, though the distance gave Ignatz a chance to loose an arrow of his own, causing a hiss of discomfort from Ashe. 

The other Black Eagles weren’t moving, though, and neither were Claude or Hilda, which almost concerned him more. He couldn’t mull too much on the peculiarities of the tactics, the next order already coming clipped into his ear, without the professor even sounding as though they had lost any breath at all. 

“Same orders. Keep going. Dimitri, get to Dorothea’s other side so you have a better position. Same for the rest of you. Far sides.”

Sylvain huffed, turning and sprinting around Ignatz, the spin of his lance catching him hard in his side, forcing him a few paces to the left. 

“I’ve lost. That’s...the professor’s quite a commander,” Ignatz said, huffing as he raised his bow, already starting to limp off towards the field. 

Ashe’s next arrow was flying off towards Dorothea, actually managing to land and wedge deep into the padded coats that were supposed to protect him, and there was an apology, even as Dorothea raised a hand, the other holding her injured side, and she also joined Ignatz off to the side of the field for some medical attention. Similarly, it sounded like Lorenz was also limping away, though Sylvain couldn’t quite see him from where he was anymore.

“Ignore Claude and Hilda. Just focus on the Black Eagles for now. Get towards the next set of trees.”

Sylvain sighed, continuing to follow the orders. What was the point of this? He didn’t want to fight his friends, and it was clear that they would be the ones that would likely come out ahead, unless they were caught badly by the rest of the Black Eagles. Which, honestly, wouldn’t happen with the bat that was Hu—

“Flames!” Sylvain caught his shoulder as he felt a bolt of strange magic catch him, and knock him back a few feet. When he looked up he saw Hubert smirking a few yards away, hands still dark with the energy, and Sylvain couldn’t help the snarl. That hurt, more than it should have, but he couldn’t focus on that now. At least the orders were easier from here, and he instantly closed the distance between himself and Hubert in a few seconds, wiping that smirk off of the man’s face with a well-placed lance point between his shoulder and his ribs. That would shut him up for a few days, probably. Of course, Ferdinand was already coming at him, and he was just slow enough to still get caught under the ribs with the lance in that man’s hand, though an arrow was already flying towards him as he gave Ferdinand a lance to the stomach. 

“Sylvain, fall back.”

Sylvain had half a mind to stay where he was just to finish the job of Ferdinand limping, or Hubert holding an arm to his side, but he fell back next to Mercedes, her warm magic already starting to soothe the aches and pains in his body as he heard both Ferdinand and Hubert fall in the next few moments. “Thank you, Mercedes,” he said, and she grinned, just shrugging. 

“You looked like you needed it more than the professor did. Just keep an eye on everything. You’re doing a good job so far.” Her smile was bright, as though sweat wasn’t plastering her hair to her forehead, and he nodded, pulling her in close for a quick hug before the next order had him jogging away again. 

Claude, Hilda, Edelgard, and then the other two professors. Still a decent number, especially with Manuela not moving from her perch, but at least it seemed as though Mercedes still had a few healing spells prepared, and Dimitri was still doing well and all. Sylvain started running back into the fray, following the professor’s voice as it directed him towards Hilda. Hilda wasn’t too far, but he’d be going without support, but it would be fine. 

Surprisingly, though, the fight with her went smoothly enough. She was terrifying, sure, and she made sure Sylvain knew it as the axe in her hands landed solidly against his ribs. He could hear a faint crunching noise, though at least he could still manage to fight, just barely. Hilda, on the other hand, got an answering blow to her stomach from him, that had her limping off of the field. He and Dimitri would have to deal with Claude on their own, since his arrows had proven to be painfully accurate, as Ashe unfortunately found out a moment earlier. He fell back after the arrow hand landed in his shoulder, and Sylvain couldn’t help a slight whine that he couldn’t watch out for the Beta better. He’d just have to take care of Dimitri, the professor, and Mercedes better. 

“Sylvain, fall back.”

Sylvain looked back at the professor, and then at Claude. He could reach Claude, and Claude wouldn’t be able to aim the bow effectively with him so close. And Dimitri would be able to get close to him, too, and hopefully finish them off. Then they’d be able to take a moment while Manuela and Hanneman caught up. 

He looked towards Claude, body already starting to move before he felt a hand pull his collar, practically tossing him back towards Mercedes. 

“I said fall back,” the professor said, practically growling in Sylvain’s face as he looked back, and Sylvain couldn’t think past the blinding terror of how he’d be punished for disobeying orders, even as Mercedes rushed to his side and gave him a healing spell. The professor simply continued, striking Claude hard on his bow arm, and Dimitri followed close behind with a thrust to Claude’s chest, forcing him back a few steps. 

Sylvain knew that there had to have been some clever quip from Claude, as he was full of them, but he still couldn’t think past the terror of how he disappointed the professor, as well as Dimitri. He would be sent home. He had already pushed things and stretched the limits too far with his poor grades and behavior, and now with this, with disobeying orders, he’d be sent home, and he’d be married off even sooner. 

“Sylvain, it’s okay. You’re doing fine. You just got a little bit eager. Let’s get you back onto your feet, and you can help the professor and Dimitri with Professors Manuela and Hanneman,” Mercedes said, reaching down to help Sylvain to his feet. She was frowning, a small crease between her eyes as she looked at him, and Sylvain forced a faint smile onto his face, even as brittle as it was. 

“You shouldn’t frown like that. It isn’t right for a lady as beautiful as yourself to have such a sour expression,” he said, flirtation falling free from his lips as he steadied himself on his feet, already starting to turn back to the fight. At least Mercedes had the decency to smile faintly at his words, and he gently bumped his forehead against hers before running off towards the professor and Dimitri, downing a vulnary along the way.

Luckily, the rest of the fight went easily enough. With neither of the other professors choosing to gang up on them, it was simple enough to gang up on them, and there was only so much they could do against four other individuals. When they were finished, Sylvain practically collapsed, having been on the edge of passing out anyways. He still felt weak and shaky still, even if it was better than earlier in the month, but this still felt almost like it was too much for him. 

“You shouldn’t have pushed yourself too hard.”

Sylvain cracked an eye open, sighing as he saw the professor looking down at him, before sighing and sitting up. “I needed to. Couldn’t just slack off this time.”

There was a long pause as he looked down at the ground, before the professor finally spoke up again. “Good job.”

Sylvain froze, looking at them and their strangely blank face, but there wasn’t anything there that seemed to indicate anger. Just their usual blankness that honestly terrified the part of him that was so used to Miklan pushing him down wells and hills and creeks with a vaguely similar expression. But at least it wasn’t anger. He didn’t have a chance to say anything in return, though, not with Dimitri already pulling him away, along with Mercedes, to get some proper medical attention from the monks. 

Later. They could celebrate later, and he could thank them for the compliment later as well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you enjoy this next installment. Actually posted it a week later, aren't you proud of me? ;) As always, please feel free to comment! Slowly plugging away at it, so the next chapter should arrive next week around the same time.


	5. Many Meals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a couple of weeks to settle into classes, the Professor finally gives the Blue Lions a much-needed day off to rest and recover from everything. Sylvain takes the opportunity to try and get away from everything, though he's caught in a conversation with the Professor.

CHAPTER 5: MANY MEALS

CERULEAN HORIZONS

HARPSTRING MOON, 1180

And like that, classes continued. Most everyone was battered and bruised that had fought in the mock-battle, and Sylvain certainly felt it for days afterwards, but their classes and studies required that they continued. In fact, the only brief difference in the next few weeks of classes was the day they spent showering Annette in flowers and gifts, somehow managing to surprise her even as she surprised them with thinking that they would somehow forget about her birthday in the shuffle of classes and everything. Honestly, Sylvain was somewhat insulted, but at least they managed to surprise her, which he wouldn’t have thought possible with the close quarters of school. 

Eventually though, they finally ended up with a free day, and, miracle of miracles, Byleth insisted that they take the day entirely off. Sleeping in felt wonderfully delightful, without needing to worry about anything, though still, wandering around the school helped to break up the tedium .  Sylvain couldn’t help the buzzing worry in his head that staying still in his room would just get him hurt and so he finally needed to get out of his room. Out from the walls pressing in on him, and out from the awful crushing weakness he felt for wanting to curl up for days and days, or to curl up with Felix or Dimitri or someone. 

The pond would be nice. It was quiet, and from what Lorenz had mentioned at one point, the Golden Deer were headed out to accompany a merchant, so he wouldn’t be able to bother him at all, and he didn’t want to deal with the Black Eagles whatsoever, either. So, his feet found the way towards the fishing pond, and he asked for a pole and some bait from the man that tended to the fish. Sylvain couldn’t fish to feed his mother more often than not, but he could at least try, even if he didn’t intend to even keep any of the fish that he might catch. It was supposed to be nice and calming, from what he heard, and he didn’t want to succumb to the desire to curl up with Felix quite yet. Especially seeing as how Felix seemed to be growing increasingly annoyed with Sylvain in how he either wasn’t training enough for what he deemed worth it, but also because of how much Sylvain had either wanted to be close to him, or one of their other friends. Even if Sylvain gave Felix his space, it seemed to only infuriate the other more, to the point where Sylvain honestly hadn’t seen much of Felix over the past week or so. It was growing to be rather annoying, and almost lonely, even despite the fact that Sylvain had been on...six dates? Maybe eight? He had lost count, between the late nights it caused and the early mornings he had been forced into getting used to. He was far too used to the long nights in Gautier territory, where the sun wouldn’t bother him until well in the day. Here...the sun seemed insistent upon bothering him before the sixth bell, and it simply meant that he had a far more difficult time getting enough sleep than he usually ever did. 

At least today he could relax. 

Except that the professor was there. He didn’t understand exactly why the professor was settled on the edge of the pond, staring blankly at the water. It would have been easy enough to think that they were somehow asleep, but the careful movements of the fishing pole proved otherwise. After a moment debating whether it was worth it to try and sneak around the professor to do some fishing of his own, he heard the professor finally speak up.

“Either join me or not. Don’t stand there gawking.”

Sylvain froze as he looked at the professor, who hadn’t even seemed to glance his direction, before he forced a smile on his face, as care-free as anything. “What? And leave you on your own? Give me a moment to get settled.”

“No need. You can sit and we can talk.”

Flames. No getting out of it, then .  He closed the distance between them, sitting down on the stone wall next to the professor. When he was settled there, he cast his line out next to the professor’s, watching it and waiting for it to catch something. 

“You need to train more.”

Sylvain sighed, closing his eyes before shrugging. “I don’t think so, professor. I’m doing alright, aren’t I? Just school, anyways. It’s not like it really matters.” He glanced over at them, smiling weakly before looking back at the water. He had heard the rumors and his family had always come here when the academy was open. He knew at least shades of what he was in for with the Officer’s Academy.

“We’ll be dealing with some bandits hiding in Zanado this month. I don’t expect that it will be easy to take care of them at all, nor that you’ll be able to keep up with the way you’ve been training. I would have expected better of someone in the academy, based on what everyone keeps telling me about this place.”

That’s right. The professor hadn’t grown up with nobility, hadn’t grown up with the trappings of this academy and the church and everything. It was strange, especially combined with the expressionless voice. Honestly, that scared him more than any reputation Byleth had in battle, nor the skill he had seen first-hand. “I’m fine. I just need to get used to living here.”

Byleth looked over at Sylvain, face blank still, even when Sylvain felt as though there should be some sort of emotion there. Concern, maybe? Annoyance? Something other than the perpetual blank slate. “You’re used to the north. Is the weather proving difficult for you to adjust to? I know that some of the mercenaries we would travel with would have issues when we travelled from the north to the south.”

Sylvain sighed before shrugging, looking away and towards the line as he felt the strong tug, and he started pulling it in, glad for the distraction. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Just not used to the hard work, I suppose,” he said, glancing over at him before turning the grimace on his face towards the water before the professor could see it. 

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t need to believe me, luckily. You just need to teach me and make sure that I don’t die while under your care and so forth and so on.” Sylvain could feel further vitriol wanting to spill from his lips, but he kept a lid on that. It wouldn’t be anywhere near proper to let that spill at all, and so he’d keep that to himself, especially while the professor was still such an unknown quantity. He had no idea who really hired him, considering he couldn’t possibly be old enough to be considered an adequate professor for the Officer’s Academy. Sure, he was remarkably skilled, anyone could see that, and anyone especially skilled in any sort of martial capacity would especially be able to see it. It’s probably why the majority of the Blue Lions had taken so easily to him. Almost all of them had been raised with weapons in their hands as soon as they could walk, and for some, he was fairly sure that they had been given weapons the moment they could close their hands around something. 

“Yes, that’s what I’m supposed to do, or so I’ve been told. Dimitri seems to wish that I become more than a simple professor, though.” The professor’s words trailed off there, and Sylvain frowned as he glanced over at Byleth, seeing a faint crease between their eyebrows. It shocked him enough that he barely even noticed that his line was taut with a fish on the other side. At least Byleth seemed to realize, their face smoothing out once more as he grabbed the pole and helped Sylvain to drag the line in. A lovely fish, larger than one person could reasonably eat, unless it was Dimitri, perhaps. 

Sylvain blinked as the two of them dropped it into the nearby bucket before he took a deep breath. “Thanks. Right. Yeah, back to what we were saying, that’s Dimitri for you. Always wants to be friends with everyone. Even with Felix, even though he’s hated him since Glenn died. Doesn’t surprise me that he wants to be friends with you, too.”

“He’s the prince, though.”

There’s a pause as Sylvain thinks about that before shrugging. “Yeah, he is. So what? He doesn’t exactly like the reminder, no matter what Dedue thinks. He’s never used it to get his way, and honestly, I used to see him far more in the kitchens than in the throne room. At least when we were kids.” Sylvain sighs as he tosses the lure back out into the water, sighing softly as he thinks about Dimitri and all of them, how they all were as children, before the Tragedy and everything that spiraled out of control. “Things are different now, but...Dimitri’s still the same, or at least I think so.”

“There’s people that don’t?” There was that hint of confusion coloring Byleth’s words again, or at least what Sylvain thought was confusion. Perhaps he was just reading too much into his voice. 

“Felix thinks he’s an animal. I don’t know why, since Felix won’t explain, never has, but something happened that Felix saw that the rest of us don’t, and so he doesn’t trust Dimitri at all. Won’t be alone with him at all. We tried, once, but it ended up with Felix nearly stabbing Dimitri at the end of it.”

“That’s good to keep in mind.”

Sylvain hummed, glancing over as he looked at Byleth, watching as he stared into the water and the ghosts of fish underneath all of it. “You said bandits in Zanado?”

Byleth nodded, quietly humming his assent. “Yes. Apparently the same ones that went after the house leaders before. The Knights of Seiros are working to trap them in an adequate place before we kill them or otherwise subdue them. Will you have a problem with that?”

Kill them? They were bandits, not exactly traitors. Honestly, Sylvain would be shocked if he heard that they actually killed anyone, especially this far south where supplies, jobs, money, all of it was plentiful. “I’m surprised they’re not trying to lead them somewhere else. That’s all. Faerghus is technically a Holy Kingdom, and...I don’t think Dimitri’s father ever went to Zanado. It’s not…” A tug at his pole derailed his thoughts, ruining the comment he nearly said as it slipped out his mind. Sylvain frowned at the water before pulling in the fish at the end of the line. Byleth took it, sliding the hook out of its mouth in a twist of his wrist before setting it into the bucket. Sylvain nearly threw the hook back out, before realizing that the bucket was full. He sighed, tying the hook around the pole so he could leave it aside. “Seems like the Archbishop likes you. Good thing she doesn’t have standards like most people in her position would. Honestly, we’re all still somewhat shocked that you actually managed to land the professorship.”

“Are you now.”

Sylvain flinched at the voice before nodding. “Just...you’re young. Practically as young as most of us, right? Just seems weird, that’s all. Clearly you’re an accomplished mercenary and all, but that doesn’t entirely mean you’re suited to be a professor, I guess.”

“I didn’t choose this. I would gladly have taken over the mercenaries from Jeralt.”

Sylvain frowned. “Your father, right?”

Byleth nodded, glancing over at Sylvain before standing up and offering his hand. “I only wish to perform my duties well so I can return to my prior work. That’s all.”

Sylvain looked at them for a moment before taking his hand and standing up, sure to grab the fish before getting too far. “You should go grab Ashe or Dedue. They’ll be the best ones to cook this much fish up. We’ve got enough for everyone, I think. And it’ll be good to spend time with everyone, too.”

“I...yes, that sounds good. I’ll take the fish. You get the others. It should be an enjoyable evening, I suppose.” Byleth managed a smile, though it looked more pained than anything else, though Sylvain appreciated the attempt at a gesture, even if it put him on edge. It looked far more like a demon’s snarl than a proper smile. He’d have to ask Annette and Mercedes to work with the professor to learn how to properly smile. 

Maybe over dinner. That would be nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Leave a comment if you'd like, along with some kudos. I'm hoping to be back a week from today for more of that sweet, sweet content.


	6. Sudden Illness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Sylvain seems to be settling into life at the Monastery, finally, he's struck with a sudden, strange illness. What it could possibly be, he has no idea, though that doesn't mean that it won't overturn his life regardless.

CHAPTER 6: SUDDEN ILLNESS

CERULEAN HORIZONS

HARPSTRING MOON, 1180

Classes with the professor proved...interesting, as they always did. While the professor clearly tried to ensure that everyone had some use from the lectures, there was still only so much they could do, especially while he gave more individualized attention. Normally Sylvain could at least hope to pay attention, especially during the lectures on lance usage and history and very reluctantly when the lecture touched on reason, but today he couldn’t seem to even manage that. The weather was even warmer than it seemed to be even the week before, and while they were discussing healing magic and the importance of knowing even a little bit for important situations on the battlefield, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. The way Felix kept poking him in the side didn’t seem to help either, only causing him to squirm as he felt the elbow constantly in his side. 

“Stop falling asleep. This is important.”

Sylvain couldn’t help the soft whine as he looked at Felix, shaking his head. “I’m not falling asleep. I’m fine.”

“You’re falling asleep. This is important. You said you’d pay more attention in class now.”

“I don’t remember saying any such thing. Why would I claim to ever pay attention in class? That makes people expect things of me.” Sylvain huffed as he looked at Felix before dropping his head on his shoulder and closing his eyes. At least Felix was there. He managed to make it at least a little bit tolerable, though it still didn’t mean that he wanted to be here. Maybe he could drag Felix off to his room after lunch. It wasn’t as though they needed to attend the classes that much at all. 

He shifted to press closer to Felix, a quiet whine slipping from deep in his chest. He didn’t want to deal with class, or the hot spring-into-summer day, or anything other than curling up against Felix. That would be a nice day. Maybe he could convince Felix to manage that. It would be like when they were kids, curling up in one of their rooms during the freezing Faerghus winters, even though it wasn’t Faerghus, and it wasn’t winter. But it would be good. Felix smelled nice, and—

“Sylvain.”

The professor wasn’t supposed to be here. Sylvain frowned, cracking an eye open before realizing that he was in the sticky-hot classroom all over again. He didn’t like this, and he especially didn’t like the fact that there was the slightest of frowns on the professor’s face. He never made any face like that, so why was he making that face now?

“Felix, please take Sylvain to his room. Don’t let anyone into his room until he’s feeling better. Keep the window shut and the cracks filled with fabric, and the same with his door. Ask Manuela for cooling herbs for an Omega.” Byleth was speaking quickly, and quietly, and Sylvain couldn’t understand it at all. Cooling herbs? Omega? That didn’t make sense at all. 

Felix was already nodding, though, pulling Sylvain to his feet and dragging him out of the classroom. Sylvain stumbled alongside him, still pressed close to him and holding tighter to him. Why couldn’t Felix just stop and sit down with him next to the wall? It would be comfortable enough, and he could press into Felix’s side better then. 

“Come on, Felix, please, it’s fine, we can just sit here for a little bit,” Sylvain said, pulling at Felix and stopping as they reached the stairs. Felix didn’t bother to respond beyond a grunt as he lifted Sylvain entirely over his shoulder. The sudden shift nearly had Sylvain sick, but at least he was close to Felix, and he ended up entirely limp as he watched the paths and grass turn into stone stairs and then wooden floors of hallways as they walked to the dormitory. The shoulder in his gut kept him from saying too much more, so he forced himself to enjoy the ride and enjoy Felix’s arms around him, at least until he was dumped unceremoniously onto a bed. 

His bed. 

Sylvain frowned, looking around and wondering how exactly he got here. Felix was carrying him. Wouldn’t he have gone to Felix’s room, then? Felix didn’t seem to notice anything wrong, though, and Sylvain stayed on the bed, too wobbly to try and manage to stand up or do anything other than watch Felix. His motions were quick and almost practiced as he closed the two sets of windows and shoved a few spare rags or handkerchiefs into the small gap between the panes of glass. One had carefully stitched embroidery, and Sylvain frowned as that one got shoved to block up the empty space as well. 

“Fe? What are you doing?”

“Keeping you safe, idiot. Get your clothes off and lay down before you burn up,” Felix said, shooting a glare at Sylvain before continuing with the motions and then turning his attention to the large bowl and pitcher. “Of course you can’t keep this filled. I can’t believe you. Now I have to deal with this, too.” he sounded even more annoyed by that, and Sylvain couldn’t help the whine as he stood up to try and walk over to him. Maybe if he held him close and pulled him into bed, he’d feel better about it. 

His legs were weak, though, and he ended up dropping back to the bed almost immediately. At least that got Felix’s attention, and he sighed as he looked back at Sylvain. 

“You’re such an idiot sometimes. Lay down before you hurt yourself.” Felix gently ran a hand through Sylvain’s hair, a motion much softer than his voice might have suggested, and Sylvain quickly took the opportunity to pull Felix into his lap, smiling at the yelp of surprise the smaller man made. Having Felix in his lap helped to unwind the knot in his chest, and he pressed his face to Felix’s throat, taking a deep breath. Sword oil and Almyran pine, and a darker musk that all combined to make Felix’s smell today, and he held onto him tighter, ignoring the way Felix was trying to push him away. 

The knee to his stomach startled him enough that he let go of Felix in favor of gasping for breath. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve that, but he couldn’t even manage a question asking about it before Felix was gone, the door opening and then slamming shut behind him. Did he do something wrong? Obviously he did, but he had just been holding onto Felix. He hadn’t done anything other than that. He knew Felix wasn’t fond of affection like that, but he wasn’t usually that openly hostile towards it .  It hurt more than he expected it to, and he curled up on his bed. Of course he would ruin things with Felix. Of course he’d ruin it, and push Felix away, and then Felix would be entirely alone, and he’d be stuck with only a loveless marriage to provide more babies with crests into the world. Delightful. 

He curled up on his bed, dragging the blankets around his body, even if he was too hot, but he wanted to hide, wanted to ignore everything. That would still be too much, though, and he finally sighed, dragging his layers of clothes off, not taking his usual care to mind any of the buttons. He’d mend them later. At least now he wouldn’t have the too-tight clothes on his body, and maybe he’d feel more comfortable, even if he still felt like he had sat on a wet chair at some point, for some reason. Yet another stupid mistake he made. He’d keep humiliating himself like this if he wasn’t careful. Nothing but an embarrassment with his only redeeming feature being the crest he bore being enough to hold the Sreng off whenever they attacked after yet another one of his father’s stupid decisions. 

“Stop looking miserable.”

Sylvain looked up from his bed, frowning as the world started to spin, before breaking into a wide grin as he saw Felix. So he hadn’t entirely ruined that friendship. “Fe. You’re back.”

“Of course I’m back. Now sit up. You look ridiculous all curled up like that. I’ve got you some food, and some water,” Felix said, instantly sitting down next to Sylvain and offering him a pastry, not even giving Sylvain enough time to respond before shoving it into his mouth. There was only the slightest of protests from Sylvain before he ate the pastry with delicate mint and pine flavors and other flavors that Sylvain couldn’t quite manage to figure out. It tasted nice, and the way it cooled his body almost immediately took effect. The worst of his fever seemed to pull back, leaving him somewhat more comfortable as he closed his eyes. 

“You...thank you.” 

“Get some water into your mouth before you fall asleep. And another one of the pastries.”

Sylvain nodded, opening his mouth for Felix to feed him. There was the briefest of moments as Felix hesitated, though he carefully offered Sylvain a sip of tart, almost mint-touched water. It immediately soothed his throat in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and Sylvain couldn’t help the quiet whine as he continued to sip at the rest of the bottle and eat the next pastry offered to his lips. He took care not to nip at Felix’s fingers, not wanting to hurt him, and not wanting to drive him away again. Felix was already being so kind by letting him lay against his chest, and by feeding him, that he didn’t want to deal with possibly bothering him again. He could be good for Felix. He liked having Felix around, and Felix was pleasantly warm, and he smelled nice. 

“Thank you, Sylvain. You’re...you’re doing very good.”

Felix’s words were almost soft enough that Sylvain could miss it, but Felix spoke them next to Sylvain’s ear. It was impossible for him to miss them. A shiver slid down his spine at the praise, and he leaned up, catching Felix’s lips in a quick kiss. He hadn’t even thought about it, but it was a reasonable way to thank Felix, and he certainly deserved a kiss for once, and Sylvain knew that he was good at kissing, and this way, Felix could have a good kiss. 

Felix didn’t seem to see it that way, his eyes wide as he looked at Sylvain. Oh. Maybe he didn’t like it. He should have asked first, of course. 

“Sylvain—”

“Just want to give you something nice, Fe.”

“Vain, seriously, I can’t do this to you.”

“It’s just a kiss.” Sylvain could feel his words slurring and sliding back and forth like a ridiculous day sledding, and that was a nice thought. Dragging Felix to go sledding one day next winter when they were back home. He’d have to remember that when they got there. “I want to kiss you.”

“When you’re feeling better. You’re…” Felix trailed off, pulling away a bit more before gently dragging his thumb over Sylvain’s lip. “You have a fever. You need rest. You don’t need me to work you up like this. I’ll be back in a little while. Promise. You need to sleep. Take care of yourself.”

Sylvain couldn’t help but whine, especially as he tried to catch Felix’s thumb with his teeth. Felix had already pulled away, though, and while he wanted to pull him close again, he could already feel his awareness start to slip. He frowned, licking his lips again, before realizing where he recognized the taste of the water. Sleeping draughts. He couldn’t even manage to start worrying to try and fight the effects, already slipping into a haze between the miasma in his mind and the fog blanketing his senses. 

* * *

It took days of haze and semi-awareness before Sylvain finally felt free of the fever and whatever else was muffling his senses. He was exhausted, and his body hurt, but at least he finally felt as though he could think past everything, and he certainly didn’t feel quite so fevered as he had been the past few days. Hopefully Felix hadn’t caught it from him. He quietly got cleaned up as well as he could with the basin of water in his room. He’d need a proper bath soon, but that could wait until he figured out where Felix had gone off to. The moment he was barely presentable, he stepped out of his room, just to find himself nearly colliding with Manuela. 

“Oh! Sylvain, just who I wanted to see. I brought you your suppressants for the week, and I wanted to check in on you to make sure you were recovering well.”

Sylvain blinked at her, not understanding what she could possibly be talking about before the pieces slowly started slotting into place. His odd fever. The fact that, of what little he could remember of the week, he had been too affectionate with Felix. The sticky slickness between his legs he had brushed off as sweat. 

“I’m an Omega.”

“Well, yes, dear. I would have thought you would have realized that when you presented.”

Sylvain slowly shook his head, leaning against the doorway and taking a shaking breath. He hadn’t presented one way or the other yet. His parents had expected him to already, but were forced to let him disappear to the Academy when the year came close to beginning. “I...I hadn’t presented at all. Just assumed, really. There hasn’t been an Omega in my family for...generations, really.” He could feel his knees starting to give way, and Manuela immediately caught him under the arm.

“Oh, we can’t have you fainting on me. Let’s get you inside so we can properly talk over this, then.” Manuela sighed before leading Sylvain into his room, closing the door with a kick of her foot before setting him down on the chair next to his desk. “You know what an Omega is, right?”

“Of course I know what it is, I’m not an idiot.” Sylvain flinched at the harshness of his tone. He wasn’t his father. He wasn’t Miklan. Why was he snapping like this? “Sorry. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I just...didn’t realize men could be Omegas, even beyond the fact that there hasn’t been an Omega Gautier in ages.”

“Well, it’s uncommon, yes, but it’s certainly not rare. Why, there’s usually one or two every year in the Officer’s Academy. I was wondering who it would be this year.” Manuela sighed, looking over at the small box of suppressants and back at Sylvain. “You’ll adjust fine, I’m sure. It’s difficult, I’ve heard, but you’re a strong man, from what I’ve heard. You need to have one of those pastries a day. It’s the least awful way I can find to administer the herbs to Omegas that need it. You’ll need to come to the infirmary every week to pick up a new supply, and tell me if you’re out on an extended mission. I’ll make more for you. You can’t forget them, or else you run the risk of falling into another heat, and that can be dangerous if you’re on a mission, or you don’t have anyone to keep an eye on you.”

An eye on him… “Felix. Where is he? Is he okay?”

Manuela blinked before nodding. “Yes, of course he is. He’s in one of the more private suits due to the rut he fell in. It’s a risk Alphas take, when they’re caring for Omegas. He seemed to do an excellent job taking care of you, though.”

Sylvain nodded slowly, thinking for a moment before taking a deep breath. “Thank you, Manuela. I appreciate this. I…” He looked at the box, and then at the door, just staring into the distance, trying to figure out how he was going to tell his father. At least he had a crest, but this...this wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all, and he knew that it meant that he would most likely be the one carrying whatever kids he was forced to have, rather than having some useless wife be able to do that instead. It made his stomach turn already at the thought, though whether that was because he didn’t know whether he’d be able to continue being the future head of House Gautier, he wasn’t sure. This was too much for him to think about at all. Maybe he could talk to Byleth. That was stupid, though. He didn’t dare tell anyone. He couldn’t tell anyone. 

“Oh, and your new professor asked me to give this to you. Your assignments for the past week while you’ve been ill. No one knows what you came down with, since we wanted to leave that decision up to you.” Manuela offered him a small smile before passing him a slip of paper. “Take the herbs every day, and you should be fine. I’ve never had them fail if someone takes them correctly.”

“Thank you, Manuela.” Sylvain couldn’t manage much more than that, and he finally opens up the box, counting out enough of the stupid pastries to last him until the next free day when he could visit the infirmary for them. 

He nibbled on the first one, and at least they tasted good, and at least Manuela left him to his misery. His room smelled awful, even if he knew that the smell of an Omega in heat—him, in heat—was fading already. He’d need to wait longer before properly airing out his room. He couldn’t tell anyone about this, not until he could figure out how to tell his father about what had happened to him. Maybe he could pass it off as some strange curse placed on him. He didn’t know. That was a ridiculous idea. His father would never accept something like that at all. The best option would simply be to...not tell his father. 

Right. Because that wasn’t even more ridiculous than a curse. 

His father was going to find out, and he was going to face the same fate as Miklan, if not worse. Probably worse, as he’d be dragged back to Gautier territory, and he’d be given to some partner who doesn’t care about him or his freedom. Maybe if he’d make a child quickly, he could be let free. Just one with a crest. Though...then again, with how everything seemed to work with the crest bloodline, he wouldn’t be surprised if he never had a child with a crest, even if he had several. 

He needed to stop thinking about all of that, just how awful and overwhelming his future was, or, rather, just how narrow it had become, and he took a deep breath before standing up. He had assignments to work on before class the next week, and so he needed to distract himself with that. He wouldn’t be able to talk to Felix at all, and he wasn’t sure how long it would be, but he couldn’t talk to him about any of this. Felix had too much to deal with already, and he still held the pain of his brother’s death too close to his heart for Sylvain to think about pushing so much more onto him with this. Distracting himself with homework was, clearly, the best way forward.

The library was too quiet. 

Sylvain sighed softly as he looked down at the books in front of him, and then over at the paper next to him with the assignments on it. It was ridiculous, and he couldn’t imagine how the professor expected him to get everything one in the few days he had before classes the next week, but he didn’t know. At least some of them seemed simple enough, such as the Northern History, and what wasn’t simple was fascinating, namely the discussion of Reason and the exact mechanisms by which the Sagittae spell utilized light and particularly starlight to gain the majority of its power. He could lose himself in it. Almost. He could almost lose himself in it. He missed his study partner needling him for either not paying attention or finally paying attention for once. 

“Sylvain.”

Flames.

Sylvain inwardly sighed, trying not to show his exasperation too much before he finally looked at Ingrid, usual charming smile painted onto his face as he looked up at Ingrid, trying to ignore the angry slant to her face as she slammed her hands on his books and papers. Lindhart would be horrified at the treatment of the books.  _ He _ was almost horrified at the careless way she was treating them. Usually she was far better with books, but apparently not today. 

“Ingrid, just the beautiful face I wanted to see. Tell me, have you looked this resplendent all week, or are you putting an effort in for me now that I’m feeling better?” Sylvain batted his eyelashes at her, laying the flirting on thick, if only to try and encourage her to leave him alone faster. He should have expected it when she simply dragged a chair over and sat down, staring at him. 

“You’ve been sick frequently since you got here.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes before shrugging. “Must not be used to the weather. You know, I’m much more used to those cold winter nights we had. It’s just so hard to invite someone to your bed when it’s so hot here.”

“Sylvain.”

“I don’t know, Ingrid. Just haven’t been feeling well.” Sylvain looked down at the papers before flipping a page in a book, resuming his notes with a shrug. “Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the stress. I can’t tell you why I’ve gotten sick twice in as many months.”

Ingrid sighed before leaning over and stealing his quill, ignoring his protests as she held it away from him. “You never do schoolwork, Sylvain. And you’re never sick like this. Spill. What’s the matter? You smell weird, too. What’s the matter with you?”

Sylvain froze, even as he was leaning over the table to try and grab the quill back. Close enough that Ingrid could smell him, obviously, between his arm being raised for the quill and just how close they were. Ridiculous that he didn’t realize the trick sooner, and also ridiculous that he even thought about it. “You’ve clearly got an idea about what the matter is, so just spit it out. Who knows? Maybe you’re right.” He couldn’t help the slight bitter edge to his voice, even if he was trying to pass it off as light and teasing as always. 

“You need to stop wasting time with Omega girls. Your father’s going to arrange a marriage for you when you present as it’s clear that you don’t intend to properly go through the motions of courting yourself. You need to stop doing this to yourself and grow up.” Ingrid’s voice might have softened towards the end, but it didn’t mean that Sylvain was any happier at all with her comments. 

“What do you know about me ?  Seriously, Ingrid, you’ve got your own particular way of seeing the world, and I’m sorry, but it’s not necessarily right. I’m just...doing what my father expects, alright?” Sylvain glanced up at Ingrid before reaching over to his books and gently trying to tug them out from underneath her hands. “Ingrid, please, can I just work on my work, please.”

“And since when do you actually end up doing your work? I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen you willingly work on assignments like this.”

“Ingrid, seriously. Please go away.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Let me get my work done, alright? I’m trying to make the professor happy with me, alright?” Sylvain sighed as he looked up at her. He could practically feel her requests to tell him what the matter was pressing on him, and he could feel a headache already starting. There were too many people in the library, even if there really weren’t that many, but there were a few students, and he supposed that there were enough smells that it was finally starting to get to him now that he was more sensitive to them. 

Why couldn’t he just be a Beta?

“Tell me what the matter is, Sylvain. We’re friends, or I thought so.”

Sylvain clenched his fists as he tried not to roll over. At least he had an answer for why he had been feeling so needy and tense around Ingrid and Dimitri and Felix, but that didn’t mean that he had to like it at all. All it meant was that he could keep himself from rolling over easier. “It’s fine. I’m adjusting. It’s harder than I expected, alright? I’m trying to actually do something properly for once, at least between all of the skirt chasing and other ways I’m disappointing everyone and my father and my good noble name.” He took a shaking breath, trying to force himself to calm down, before finally shaking his head, tangling his hands in his hair. “Please go away, Ingrid.”

“Fine. Remember that friends tell each other things. I thought we were close enough for the truth.” Ingrid finally stood up straight, brushing off their uniform before she sighed softly as she looked at him. Sylvain didn’t look up, keeping his eyes vaguely keeping track of her, and finally when he didn’t look up, Ingrid walked off without another word. 

It wasn’t fair to either of them. Sylvain knew that. They were close, practically like siblings at times, considering just how often he stayed with Ingrid and Dimitri and Felix either in Fhirdiad or Fraldarius territory or even more rarely at Gautier territory. It really was all ridiculous, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know who to tell about any of this, and Felix wasn’t around to talk to, nor even to thank for taking care of him. 

He was alone. At least, he was alone with this, without anyone that would be able to see past the life-long mask he’s built up. Delightful. 

Sylvain took a deep breath, looking down at his classwork. He didn’t want to deal with it. He wanted to go back to his room, but the walk from the library to his room would take him in front of everyone again, and with it being the afternoon...he didn’t want to deal with the questions. Staying here and pretending to work on classwork was easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do apologize for getting this out a few days late. I lost track of the days this week, apparently, and obviously forgot that Wednesday had come and gone. Still, here we are! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, a nice long one. See you next week for the next installment! Comments bribe me into more chapters. :)


	7. Necessary Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Sylvain's lived through his first heat, that doesn't mean everything's back to normal yet, no matter how much Sylvain would want them to be. However, classes and holidays still happen, even if Felix is nowhere to be found after helping Sylvain through his heat.

CHAPTER 7: NECESSARY LESSONS

CERULEAN MOON

HARPSTRING MOON, 1180

Felix still wasn’t there. 

Felix was still gone, and it had been almost three days . 

Sylvain didn’t know what to do. While he was feeling better, and his head was clearer, he was still anxious at the idea of talking to Ingrid or Dimitri again, and he had thrown himself into the endless skirt-chasing. Something to try and keep everyone from looking too closely at him, even if it had gotten him punched, slapped, and kicked already in the past three days. At least it kept him on his toes, and kept him humble, not that he particularly needed any help with that, to be honest. 

Class dragged on. Yet another day of personal attention and lessons meant that he wouldn’t be doing much more than book work, and he couldn’t even needle Felix about it at all. While he enjoyed the larger lectures on more general topics, these days were...difficult, to say the least. He might be able to research lance and riding techniques, and spend the afternoon with the practical training that worked better for him, but that wasn’t guaranteed at all like it was the rest of the week’s class days. 

“Sylvain?”

“Professor?” Sylvain looked up, surprised as he heard his name. He normally wasn’t given attention these days. Dimitri, or Ashe, or even Mercedes were given private attention far more frequently than he really ever was. “Did you—”

“Personal lessons, Sylvain. I thought you understood how classes worked here.”

If Sylvain didn’t know that Byleth was always emotionless, he’d be terrified that he had already upset him. Even then, he already felt the familiar walls and barriers being erected to keep him safe during a punishment. The professor was safe. He was fine. He plastered a grin on his face, standing up and walking towards him. “Right, yeah, of course. I knew that. Just testing you, after all.”

“Of course.” Byleth’s face was blank as ever, and Sylvain shifted as they stood in the very front of the classroom, next to the blackboard. Sylvain didn’t know what the professor could have to teach him. As far as he knew, the professor knew almost as much as he did about most everything but swordwork or authority, but Sylvain wasn’t going to point that out at all. Everyone else seemed to be satisfied with his work, so maybe he’d be fine. 

There was a beat of silence as Byleth shifted through papers and a few books, before he pressed a book into Sylvain’s hand. “Reason. We’ll be working on that one-on-one today. You’ll continue your riding and lance work on your own. But your paper was insightful. I needed to ask Hanneman for assistance, and he thought you were quite gifted with it.”

Sylvain froze as he heard that, and Byleth raised an eyebrow momentarily. “Professor, you really didn’t...I should have written it better if you couldn’t—”

“I didn’t give Hanneman your name.”

Sylvain couldn’t hide the relief he felt as he looked down at the book in his hands .  “Thanks, Professor. I—”

“I don’t know why you don’t want your work to pass without acknowledgement, but that shouldn’t be the case. Your work is excellent, and certainly goes over my head sometimes.”

“Professor, please.” Sylvain closed his eyes, glancing back at his chair in the back corner. “I don’t need all of this. Just the book is fine, please.”

Byleth’s face shifted, and Sylvain couldn’t help but get the impression of a frown, and he glanced away, pulling the book against his chest and running a hand through his hair. This would have been easier if Felix was around and he wasn’t already on edge. Already, he had disappointed Byleth enough for an actual expression on his face, the first one he remembered seeing, even after watching Byleth with Dimitri at points, and he was going to be sent home. 

“Are you feeling better after this past week?”

Sylvain felt his mental gears grind to a halt, and he finally gave the very vaguest of shrugs. “I suppose. I have to, really. Difficult to feel worse after that.” He frowned as he glanced over his shoulder to the rest of the students. They were far enough away that it wouldn’t be anything more than a bit of a murmur, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to have this conversation in front of everyone. 

“It can be difficult, I know.”

“You?” Sylvain didn’t know which was harder to believe, the fact that he was an Omega, or that the professor was as well, apparently. Probably the fact that the professor was an Omega, really. He didn’t think anyone would ever believe him if he said that the Ashen Demon wasn’t an Alpha, nor even a Beta. 

Byleth nodded, humming a quiet note as he looked down at the table. “Yes. I know it doesn’t seem likely. My father worried endlessly when I presented. You’ll need to work twice as hard, but you’ll be fine. You’re…” Byleth trailed off, a slight pinch to their expression as they glanced away. “You’re a good student. Even if you hide it. Poorly. Very poorly.”

Sylvain huffed softly before nodding slightly. “I think you’re the only one who thinks any of that, but if you insist.”

There was a beat of quiet before Sylvain finally opened up the book, looking at the list of chapters in the front of it. He didn’t even know what else to get or do with this individual attention. He didn’t know how to talk to the professor, and it was swiftly becoming clear that the professor honestly didn’t really know how to teach, either. Apparently he made do, but when he was insistent that he learn about Reason now, but he...didn’t know how to teach it. Delightful. 

“Let’s begin. Lessons, rather than talking. I’m not good at that, clearly.”

“Clearly not,” Sylvain replied with an amused snort. 

Byleth’s face shifted, less from the blankly concerned face turning slightly less concerned. Not anything close to a smile, but there might have been the faintest ghost of a smile there. “Flame spell. We’ll begin there. Move on to other spells after that. I think it’s the opening pages of that book. You’ve completed the theoretical training, so now we’re going to begin with the practical training. I’ve taken some time with Hanneman, so...hopefully I can help a little bit.”

Sylvain nodded, thinking back to the papers written, taking a deep breath. “Alright. Flames. I can do that.” He lifted his hand, thinking about the readings, the research he had been doing, and the rest of the day passed in a strangely pleasant buzz of work to try and learn how to even manage to make a single flame. 

* * *

Without Felix there to needle and pester, the week crawled by. Even working at the stables at the end of the week didn’t do anything to help him feel better about everything. Annette filled the day with her mindless babble and chatter, letting him work and tend to the few horses in quiet. He could do this well, even if the horses were fussier than the ones back home in Faerghus and tried to get sick at the drop of a hat, but he knew how to take care of horses well. 

At least the Saint’s Day could be a distraction, a brief moment of normalcy in the world, even if he wouldn’t be able to participate in the usual traditions from the north. While they were a Holy Kingdom...so far north in his Gautier territory, the edges between the traditions spoken about in the darkest of nights sometimes bled with those of the church. While he wasn’t entirely fond of Saint Macuil, or the church services, the tradition of disappearing into the forests for a night to track down the first of the wildflowers to weave into crowns for a romantic partner was always nice, even if his got handed off to whatever lady happened across his path first. That was what was expected, after all. 

That was what everyone expected of him.

The monastery had none of those traditions, though. Nothing even remotely close to the almost-pagan religion of searching out the first of spring and summer’s life. Doubtless, they only sang stuffy hymns and pretended to be thankful for some mysterious saint. He had to admit that the cathedral was beautiful, filled with incense and candles, glittering and polished, and he could lose himself in that for a little while, at least. The sermons were the same, regardless of where in Fódlan they were, though, and it was easy enough to fall asleep to those. 

At least, it was easy enough until he caught a glimpse of familiar blue-black hair, and he shifted from where he was sitting next to Dimitri. When had Felix returned? Had he been going out of his way to avoid Sylvain, somehow? He almost stood up, only to get an elbow to his side, hard enough to nearly steal his breath away. 

“The service isn’t over, Sylvain. I know you don’t respect this, but please try to pretend.”

“Didn’t need to stab me with your elbow, Dima.”

Byleth cleared their throat next to them, and Sylvain frowned as he fell silent, even as Dimitri muttered an apology. Sylvain didn’t see a need to do that, especially as he kept his eyes on Felix, practically hidden by one of the columns. The service was almost over ,  and while he was sure that Dimitri would be dragging him away, he needed to try and track Felix down, figure out what happened and why he had disappeared for so long. 

“Sylvain, wait!”

Sylvain rolled his eyes as he ignored Dimitri as he ran off the moment the service came to a conclusion, trying to track down Felix before he disappeared. Dimitri would get over not being able to track him away for lecturing him about his lack of respect for the Church, but he could listen to that lecture later on. Right now, he was following the familiar head of dark hair out the side entrance, just barely managing to catch his cloak before he made it to the bridge. 

He forgot to account for the fact that Felix wouldn’t expect him, and he’d get attacked for startling him. Sylvain groaned as he felt his back hit the ground, a knee pressed against his chest. At least he could force a fake smile on his face for a moment as he looked at Felix, but it quickly turned into a groan as he closed his eyes. 

“Are you serious? I’m being so abused today,” Sylvain finally said after a moment, once his breath had mostly managed to return, though the knee against him made it difficult to get anything more than the barest minimum amount of air to keep him alive. 

Felix pulled away after a moment, and he sighed, offering Sylvain a hand. “Next time don’t grab me, idiot. You brought it on yourself. What do you want?”

“I wanted to talk to my best friend.”

“You could have said something.” Felix rolled his eyes at the tone in Sylvain’s voice and the slight whine in it, and he picked Sylvain up. He didn’t pull his hand away immediately, and Sylvain didn’t pull away either, staying close to him as he took a deep breath . He could feel the stress of the past week start to unknot in his chest with Felix close by. Hopefully it meant that Ingrid and Dimitri would give him some breathing room now that Felix was there to balance them out as well. 

Sylvain shrugged after a moment, forcing a bit of a smile on his face as he looked at him. “You’re okay? Manuela told me you ended up in a rut after taking care of me.”

“I’m fine. I had to visit my father for a few days, otherwise I would have been back earlier.” Felix frowned for a moment before finally dropping his hand. Sylvain couldn’t help but feel strangely cold without the familiar touch, though he wasn’t about to tell Felix that and ask for it back. “You’re doing better?”

“As good as I can be.” Sylvain nodded, even if he didn’t feel as though he was doing much better. Felix frowned momentarily, eyes narrowing, and Sylvain glanced away. He didn’t want to push that too much, and luckily it seemed as though Felix realized that as well, especially as the area around them was growing somewhat more crowded. 

Felix looked somewhat uncomfortable, especially as someone jostled the two of them, and Sylvain couldn’t help but grimace slightly. At least they hadn’t said anything too specific about what he was. “Please don’t tell anyone. And…”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Sylvain and Felix both glanced away from each other, and Sylvain couldn’t help but scuff his boots against the flagsteps. “I was worried about you.”

“Sure you were. You were just worried I’d turn up in the middle of a date.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes, and he opened his mouth to reply, though Felix spoke up again before he could manage even a single word.

“We should go camping. The weekend after your birthday. Like always. I made sure to pick up our supplies from home, so it’ll basically be like it always has been.”

That was a good idea. His birthday was in a couple of weeks, and Sylvain knew he’d like to get away from everything. Surely if they told the professor what they were planning, he’d let them go off on their own, and they wouldn’t have to go too far to feel like they had gotten away from everything. An hour’s ride, maybe two or three. 

“We’ll go camping. Weekend of my birthday,” Sylvain said, smiling at Felix before pulling him into a tight hug for a moment. “Looking forward to it already.”

“Sap. I’ll talk to you later, alright? I’ve got to tell the professor I’m back.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything.” Sylvain smiled at Felix, looking at him for another moment, already looking forward to the trip, before turning and jogging away. Training before the mission at the end of the month. Practice with Reason and black magic. Look forward to the camping trip with Felix. 

Maybe his life wouldn’t be too bad, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week, another chapter! As always, I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to any more comments you might send my way (please send comments) (seriously i love comments, please engage with my content)


	8. Ill-gotten Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weekend of his birthday, with plans firmly in place, Sylvain finds himself receiving a gift from his parents. While nothing good is in store with that, he knows he can't ignore it for long.

CHAPTER 8: ILL-GOTTEN LETTERS

CERULEAN MOON

GARLAND MOON, 1180

“And you’re sure you’re doing better now?”

Sylvain sipped at the tea, closing his eyes as he enjoyed the pepper-spice of the deep black bergamot tea, before finally replying to the question and nodding. “I’m doing fine, Professor, promise. Don’t gotta worry about me,” he said, grinning as he opened his eyes before setting the teacup down. Honestly, it wasn’t right how good of a cup of tea the professor could manage to make. He couldn’t remember even brewing it for himself this well, and Lorenz couldn’t hope to light a candle next to this, not that he’d tell the other noble that. 

“Everyone’s been concerned about you.” Byleth sipped at their tea as well, though it was clear that he didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Sylvain did. They barely touched their cup, though they seemed to enjoy a few of the delicate sandwiches that they brought from the kitchen. 

Really, the sudden tea party had shocked Sylvain. He heard rumors of the professor giving the other students flowers, and only recently starting with tea parties here and there, but he hadn’t expected he’d be one of those to get something from them, and certainly he hadn’t expected to receive his favorite tea, peach sorbet and sandwiches, as well as a fine chess set that surely cost more than they usually saw in months when he was a mercenary. Even if it hadn’t exactly been on his birthday, and instead later in the afternoon on the Saturday, it still touched him that Byleth had thought to do this for him. The least he could do was sit and indulge him in conversation without trying to disappear.

“I’m fine, promise. It’s an adjustment, but I’ve been good about the herbs from Manuela, and...it’s fine, really.” It wasn’t, and he was terrified that he would walk home after the year and be locked away forever, but he could try to convince himself he was fine. 

Byleth didn’t seem to actually accept the answer or believe it at all, at least with the slight way that their lips tightened, and Sylvain refused to look them in the eye. While he was likely imagining the disappointment in their eyes, he still didn’t want to see it at all. 

“You can be…” The professor trailed off for a moment before he glanced away. “You can be not-fine. I cannot promise I’ll be able to help, but...I can try.”

“Awfully chatty today, aren’t you?” Sylvain had intended it to be teasing, but Byleth immediately fell silent and looked away, whatever slight openness he had seen earlier immediately closed off. He could practically see the way that walls fell around their mind. “I’m teasing, promise,” Sylvain said quickly, reaching out to the other side of the table as Byleth slipped their hands away at the last moment. 

Byleth didn’t respond other than to slightly incline his head in the barest hint of a nod, and Sylvain frowned as he looked off to the side, sipping at the tea. While silence with the professor wasn’t always bad, this particular one felt awkward and tense and awful. 

“I’m sorry. I’m...for as much as I flirt with girls and that sort of thing, I’m really awful at talking with people.” Sylvain knew the apology wasn’t nearly enough, not with the way that Byleth had immediately closed off, but he didn’t know what to say, especially not with Byleth either unwilling to respond, or unable to. 

Byleth seemed to relax slightly, at least, though it didn’t do much to make Sylvain feel too much better. Still, he didn’t say anything, not even as they passed over a wooden box to Sylvain, tapping the crest that had been burned into the lid of it. His family’s crest. Delightful. 

“From my parents?”

Byleth inclined their head a moment again. 

“Thanks. I appreciate it. And...I do enjoy talking to you. This was amazing, I promise. You’re good at it, and you’re not a bad professor,” Sylvain said, offering him a small smile as he picked up the box. He wasn’t looking forward to whatever present this was from his parents, why they insisted upon this rather than a simple letter, but at least they hadn’t forgotten him. He picked up his chess set as well, before nodding and making his way towards his room to open the gift and put everything away. Hopefully the box didn’t have anything too unexpected for a gift, though at this point, anything would be. He had no idea what his parents would ever have gotten him at this point, unless it was some sort of armor, or a weapon. However, that would never be able to fit into a box this size. 

The box sat on the desk as he looked at it, frowning at the construction of it and the very fact that it was there. He didn’t want to deal with it, and he knew that whatever was inside of it was the actual gift, or simply not very important, considering the box itself was already starting to fall apart. He still didn’t know whether he was going to be insulted or not with the gift. 

After too long staring at it, he finally opened it, breaking the wax and string seal on the edge as he lifted the lid. It would be fine. It was a present from his parents, and if he hated it enough, he could pass it off to someone else. A strange courting gift to someone and not bother with ever thinking about it again. Even opening his eyes took a stupidly difficult amount of effort, which seemed remarkably unnecessary the moment he saw what was inside. 

A letter. 

A letter, with his father’s seal, sitting on something, but at least he could pay attention to the letter first. That was all he really needed to do for the moment. He pulled his paper knife over, sliding it past the wax seal and opening the envelope, before sighing at the sight of his father’s handwriting. Of course he had known to expect that, but it still felt like a chore to try and suffer through whatever his father was trying to tell him. Half a continent away, and his father still made him terrified of any little thing. 

His eyes scanned over the letter, catching on sentences here and there. Standard pleasantries throughout, with words about the Gautier-Srengi border and the difficulties with recent skirmishes that Sylvain couldn’t assist with. By the end of the page, Sylvain had almost relaxed, until he came across the last few words from his father. 

> _ “Enclosed is your gift. An elixir from one of the wise women living just north of here. She says that it will help you present within two weeks if you take three drops by mouth every day. I hope that I will hear word of your presenting as an Alpha by the close of the month.” _

Sylvain’s hands closed on the paper, crumpling it as the words burned into his eyes and he finally looked into the box and saw the vials within, carefully cushioned on spare wool. Of course he shouldn’t have expected a gift. Of course they’d be expecting him to have presented by now. He was supposed to be an Alpha. He needed to tell him that he had presented. His father. His father was going to be disappointed in him. Sylvain was a disappointment. Of course he was. Good Gautier sons don’t present as Omegas. 

Sylvain couldn’t breath, couldn’t see anything past the crystal vials, before he ripped his eyes away from the two of them. He had to get out of there, do  _ anything _ other than think about the fact that he still hadn’t told his father he presented, that he wasn’t going to amount to anything, that he’d need to be dragged back to Gautier territory because he was an Omega, and Omegas weren’t in battles like this at all. 

* * *

Sylvain hadn’t even realized he was running until he was in town and practically collapsed against the side of a building, gasping for breath. He was a mess, and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to even think about returning to the monastery yet, not when that meant that he’d have to face the letter from his father, and that stupid box all over again. He hated all of it, and he hated the fact that he was nothing like how he was expected to be. His father wanted a son who would destroy the Sreng, a son that would wield the Lance of Ruin without flinching or wondering why they were still at war with Sreng after centuries and countless attempts at peace. 

He turned after a few moments, walking into the nearby tavern. It was quiet still, as it was barely edging towards late afternoon and wasn’t evening yet, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get an early start on attempting to sink into oblivion. The bartender—Joshua, Sylvain was fairly sure was his name—knew him, and while he had a confused look on his face, he passed over Sylvain’s usual ale as Sylvain passed back a frankly ridiculous amount of money . 

“Sure about that?”

Sylvain looked up at Joshua before shrugging. “Might as well. Whole year older, after all. If I can’t celebrate after my birthday, then I don’t know when I can.”

He huffed, rolling his eyes. “You’re in here every weekend.”

“So what if I am? I’ve got the coin, and I always pay for myself and the lovely ladies I bring in.” Sylvain couldn’t help but feel somewhat miffed that his decision—not that it was anything more than half-baked reflex dragging him into the establishment he always dragged himself into when he felt like too much of a failure or too secure in who he was—was being questioned like this. “I’m fine, Joshua. I’ll just have a couple of drinks, talk with some of the beautiful women lingering, and then I’ll be on my way.”

Joshua sighed as he looked at Sylvain before nodding finally. “Fine. Suit yourself,” he said before gesturing with his chin towards a woman in the back corner. “Alpha woman over there. Seems your type. Just make sure you pay for her drinks.”

Sylvain glanced over, saw the dark-haired beauty, before nodding, standing up with a smirk as he looked at Joshua. “Thanks for the tip.”

* * *

“You truly are delightful company,” Sylvain said, time having long-since grown fuzzy. The woman laughed, stealing a kiss from Sylvain’s lips, and he couldn’t help but grin against her lips. 

“You are as well. Get me another drink.” 

Sylvain grinned and nodded as he took the collection of glasses at the table towards the bar. He stumbled as he pushed past a few people before setting them in front of Joshua. “Another round, please.”

“You’re going to miss dinner at the Monastery, Sylvain.”

“I asked for another round of drinks, please.” Sylvain’s easy grin slipped only slightly at the mention of dinner. He was forgetting something, wasn’t he? There was something important he was needing to do, but...

“Here you are.”

The clink of the drinks startled Sylvain briefly, but he turned back to Joshua, setting down the appropriate coins for him. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver,” he said before picking the glasses up and returning to his table. He paused, though, as the woman pulled up her blue-black hair. Beautiful, but...something wasn’t entirely right. He had clearly forgotten something.

“Sylvain, dear, thank you for the drinks,” she said, already reaching for her glass, and Sylvain nodded, sitting back down next to her and pressing a kiss to her throat. 

* * *

The candles burned low, light dim in the bar as Sylvain leaned closer to the woman, trailing kisses over her pale skin. 

“I have a room above the bar. Come to bed with me?”

Sylvain smiled, grinning as he pushed a lock of her hair out of her face. 

“Of course, baby. I’d love to spend the night with you. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...................  
> .............  
> long time no see?  
> Sorry it's taken so long. I know it's rough, but this is the first week that I've finally felt like I can write again. I originally intended to have a buffer so that breaks like this didn't happen, but...unfortunately, that requires me to remember to post the chapters. Regardless, thanks for sticking around. I appreciate all of the comments I get, and I hope everyone enjoys this latest installment.


	9. Appointments Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain returns to the monastery after his evening. Difficulties with his father forgotten for the moment, he gets home and suddenly realizes exactly what he had forgotten, and faces the consequences of his actions.

CHAPTER 9: APPOINTMENTS REMEMBERED

CERULEAN HORIZONS

GARLAND MOON, 1180

Sylvain groaned quietly, head aching and eyes burning as he opened his eyes to the morning sun. He barely remembered the past evening, which was exactly how he wanted it, and he pulled himself out of the bed. The woman was still there, sleeping and curled up in the blankets, and he sighed softly as he looked at her. 

He was a fucking dick.

He needed to get back to the monastery, though, and he quickly dressed and slipped out of the room. It would still take almost an hour to get there, but at least he shouldn’t miss breakfast. It was a Sunday, after all, and Byleth hadn’t mentioned anything about them leaving Garreg Mach to do any sort of training. Besides, it was the start of the month. They always had a free day to explore and do what they wanted earlier in the month. He just had to make sure that he’d get to breakfast before it closed or before anyone noticed that he had left in the first place the previous night, even if everyone probably noticed the fact that he had missed dinner. 

The walk was nice, though. It always was. Just steep enough that he had to work to keep a decent pace up, but not long or steep enough that it truly tired him out. He could see why the town had sprung up where it was, and it really was a boon for the nobility that were used to having everything easily within reach, as well as for the commoners that might not be as used to the over-the-top setting that was Garreg Mach. 

“Where were you?”

Sylvain jumped as he nearly toppled the bowl of porridge over. The sharp words added another layer of stabbing pain through the headache forming from the noise of the dining hall, and he glanced over at Felix. Honestly, Felix looked almost as awful as he felt. Hair entirely hanging loose in places and not tucked away into his usual bun, and his shirt opened at the throat and circles dark enough to rival the mid-winter nights. He frowned for a moment as he looked at him, and his worry, before his eyes widened. “Oh, oh Goddess—”

“Where were you?” Felix’s words were louder, shouted at him, and Sylvain stood up, hands up to try and pacify Felix somehow, even if he didn’t know how he’d be able to fix this. 

“I forgot, Fe. I’m sorry. I’m so—”

“You were drinking!”

Sylvain froze, taken aback a bit, and he couldn’t help but shrug, as though he could even attempt to deny it. “I...it was a few—”

“What, did you think I wasn’t good enough? You needed to go off and fuck some idiotic woman to celebrate your birthday instead?”

“That wasn’t it, Fe!” Sylvain knew that wouldn’t be enough to tell Felix, to explain to him, but he didn’t even know how he had forgotten, why he hadn’t gone to Felix instead of drowning his inadequacies in alcohol and women. 

At least Felix didn’t seem to immediately respond, though Sylvain wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. It meant that Felix wasn’t screaming at him yet, but it also meant that he was stewing in his anger, rather than getting it out immediately, and that could be worse than anything else. 

“Felix...I swear, I didn’t mean to forget. I had tea with the professor, and they gave me a package from my parents.”

“Oh, so you’re blaming it on your parents, now? Tell me, Sylvain, do you even remember her name? Or was it a quick fuck in the alleyway before you disappeared and ruined her life, too?”

Sylvain stopped short, about to shout back at Felix. He didn’t know how to respond to that, but Felix seemed to take that as an answer instead of the shock that it was. 

“I can’t believe you! We  _ always _ camped together for our birthdays! You’re like an entirely different person now that you’re here!” Felix was shouting now, and Sylvain couldn’t help the shame crawling up his spine as he sat down, unable to look at him as he continued. “I know you were always ridiculous around women, but this is disgusting! You’re supposed to be the Margrave one day, and here you are, barely training, barely working for your studies. You’re going to get killed because you need to shove your pathetic cock in something!”

“Felix...please, I’m sorry,” Sylvain said, trying to ignore the desire to drop to his knees to beg for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“That’s the  _ problem _ , Sylvain! You never think! I was terrified you went off and did something stupid!”

Sylvain opened his mouth, about to try to explain, tell Felix about the letter and the “gift” from his father, but Dimitri appeared between them, already pushing Felix away. He spared Sylvain a glare, before returning his attention to Felix, hand on the back of his neck as he started leading him towards the door. 

“Sylvain, I’m very disappointed in you. Felix, you’re not going to achieve anything like this. Let’s go spar. Leave him to his punishment from the professor,” Dimitri murmured to Felix, just loud enough for Sylvain to overhear before they left. 

Sylvain took a shaking breath as he watched them disappear from sight, tightening his hands and trying to get them to stop shaking. Despite the fact that he knew he hadn’t eaten much since the previous afternoon, his stomach was rolling enough that he didn’t think he’d be able to stomach any of the rest of the porridge, no matter how plain it was. He wanted to explain things to Felix, but he didn’t even know where to begin. Surely Felix knew that he didn’t exactly flirt and sleep with women just because he liked it. He didn’t know exactly why he did it, but it wasn’t because he enjoyed dealing with the constant rejection and inevitable hatred he received from it, no matter how he deserved it.

As awful as he felt about it, Sylvain passed his half-full bowl of porridge over to the kitchen staff to clean. Hopefully they’d give it to a kid or something, but he couldn’t stomach it anymore. Bath and then sleep all day until the Professor inevitably barged in and gave him some sort of punishment for disappearing, though he was perfectly entitled to leave for a night. Even if he ruined his friendship with Felix. Felix wouldn’t ever want to see him again, not after this. 

Sylvain took a shaking breath, hands gripping the short wall outside the dining hall, trying to breathe past the terror and the realization that he wouldn’t have Felix close again. Of course Felix wouldn’t want to see him again. He was a horrible person, one who didn’t deserve his friends, didn’t deserve anything that had been passed to him. His crest damned him, of course, turning him into a cog in the endless machine of nobility and death and destruction, so why should he have friends to keep him safe and happy? He turned after a moment. This breakdown needed to happen in his room, not in public, and he also needed to eat one of the stupid pastries. It would be better to fall apart in his room.

“We’re talking.”

The yelp that came from Sylvain’s lips was singularly humiliating as he felt himself get thrown over Byleth’s shoulder, already walking off without him able to say a word against it. That didn’t keep him from struggling against the other, even though he knew it really wasn’t much of a fight. It was humiliating, though, and he couldn’t help the growl as he kicked and punched and clawed at Byleth, but it seemed as though Byleth didn’t care, not with their armor on. Byleth didn’t even shift his weight on his shoulder until he was tossed onto a bed, the door slamming shut to leave him there. 

“What are you doing?”

Byleth leveled a look at Sylvain, and it immediately quelled whatever further argument he had, and he shrank into himself as he looked at him. While Byleth was as quiet as he ever was, Sylvain couldn’t help but feel as though he had deeply disappointed the other. 

“Are you here to yell at me, too?”

“Am I yelling?”

Sylvain huffed before shaking his head. “I’d prefer it if you did, though. Get that anger out. It’s not healthy to bottle it in, you know.”

Byleth didn’t respond immediately to that, and Sylvain glanced up at him. The glance was especially short for once, considering the weight of the disappointment in Byleth’s look felt like a lead blanket on his shoulders. 

“I didn’t mean to be gone all night, Professor, promise.”

“Felix insisted you were kidnapped, or hurt. He said that you never would have missed the trip the two of you had planned, and that something had to be wrong.”

Wonderful. Sylvain couldn’t help but feel the stab of guilt twist in his intestines, practically making him sick, though after a moment, he was fairly certain he  _ was _ getting sick. He bolted, crawling to the bushes outside Byleth’s room and emptying what little he had in his stomach. It was ridiculous, he knew that, but he also knew that this was far too much for him to deal with today. The letter, getting so drunk, forgetting everything with Felix, now this? He wanted to curl up in bed. He’d be sobbing if he even knew how to do that anymore, but he doubted that he could even do that. Not that he deserved it at all, not really. 

“Feeling better?”

“Do you really think this is better?”

“Get back inside. I have ginger tea brewing.”

Sylvain groaned softly, not looking forward to the ginger, even if he knew that it would help his stomach settle after everything. “Why are you making me tea at all? I don’t deserve it. I’m just going to go back to my room, deal with all of this later.”

Byleth grabbed Sylvain’s sleeve, dragging him back inside their room. “Ginger tea. And we’re talking.”

“This is stupid.”

“This is what adults do.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes, though he stopped fighting quite so hard as he walked into the room and closed the door behind him. “Thought we had a free day.”

“I thought you were supposed to be out with Felix.”

The reminder had Sylvain flinching as he looked away, barely even reacting as the professor shoved a roughly-made mug of tea into his hand that smelled of far more than just ginger, and he frowned, sniffing at it for a moment. “What’s in this?”

“Ginger, cinnamon, cloves, anise, other spices. My father found it when we were working in the mountains to the east. I don’t have much left, so please tell me if you’d rather not have it. I’ll gladly take it from you.”

“Gladly? You?” Sylvain couldn’t help the half-laugh at the thought. Byleth leveled a glare at him, effectively silencing him, and he quickly started sipping the warm liquid, blinking quickly at the warmth that spread through him, just as much from the spices as it did from the warmth of the liquid. Even despite himself ,  he found himself feeling better and less like he was about to get sick all over again. 

“Yes, gladly.” There was a tightness that came to Byleth’s face, and Sylvain shifted, frowning into the mug. 

"Just...you don’t—”

“I’m aware.”

“Right. Right, sorry.”

Sylvain couldn’t do anything right this morning. Well, the past day, apparently. Byleth, at least, didn’t seem to keep the tightness for too long, either hiding it or getting over it quickly. He didn’t know whether that was better or not, and he forced himself to swallow down the knot his intestines were tying themselves into. Byleth was fine. Byleth didn’t get emotional or overly upset about anything. Annette had already caused the kitchens to explode, and Byleth only pulled up their sleeves and started cleaning with her when he heard. It was fine. He was fine.

“Felix was worried about you. Insisted that you had to be kidnapped in order to miss the appointment you had with him. It was only when one of the mercenaries came back from town and told us they saw you that he accepted that you had forgotten. I believe he shut himself away in the training grounds all night. What were you two going to do?”

“Nothing. It’s not important, Professor, promise.”

Byleth narrowed his eyes at Sylvain, and Sylvain couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably in his seat as he sipped at the tea. 

“Camping. We usually go camping for my birthday. We had meant to leave last night so that we could have all day outside today,” Sylvain finally said. He hated having to admit this, having to explain this and admit just how badly he had messed up. “I don’t even know what happened. I just...I had only meant for a drink or two. My father—”

“The package he sent you?”

Sylvain nodded. “It was a concoction. One that’s supposed to induce a rut in an Alpha that hasn’t presented yet.”

Byleth’s eyes widened as he looked at Sylvain, opening his mouth, though Sylvain quickly cut him off before he could say anything.

“No, I haven’t told him. I wouldn’t even know how to tell him. I said earlier, there’s not been an Omega in generations. Only Alphas or Betas.”

They were quiet for a while, and Sylvain sipped at the tea before setting the mug aside. He didn’t know what more to say, but he felt as though Byleth was waiting for him to continue. He stayed silent for a while longer, but it was clear that Byleth absolutely was waiting on him. 

“I just had a few drinks. Met a pretty girl. What can you say? Had to take the opportunity when it presented itself to me.”

Byleth looked particularly unimpressed, especially with the grin that Sylvain plastered onto his face, and he stood up after a few moments. 

“Sit down.”

“Professor, please. I’m fine. It was a stupid mistake.”

“You’re mucking out the stables for the next week. On top of your other chores and classes. Each time someone catches you in the tavern and it gets back to me, another week is added. Am I understood?”

Sylvain frowned as he looked at Byleth, already doing the mental math about how much time that would reasonably leave him. He knew his face had dropped the smile, and he forced a somewhat shaky smirk on his face again. “But Professor, what about all those lovely ladies I’ll be disappoi—”

“If you go to the tavern again, you muck out the stables an extra week. No riding. No brushing the horses down. Just mucking the stables.”

“Professor, this isn’t—”

“Did someone kidnap you? Did someone force you on the woman, force the drink down your throat?”

“No...No. No one did. Of course not. They wouldn’t dare. They all know I’m nobility.”

“Then it’s your fault. This is clearly necessary. What would you have done if it had been Felix? What would have happened if we needed to be called out on a mission quickly? If the Seiros Knights decided that we needed to move out today to deal with Lonato’s rebellion, instead of when we had scheduled?”

Sylvain shrank back slightly, even if Byleth hadn’t raised their voice at all. It felt too much like his father. Byleth’s words scraped over wounds more raw than he’d like to believe, and he could only manage a nod. “I’ll muck the stables out. You won’t find out about this again.”

“Sylvain.”

“You won’t find out about this again.” Sylvain’s words were harder for a moment before he turned and left, taking the opportunity to slam the door shut behind him as well. Was it petty? Yes. But he hurt. But he deserved this. He really did deserve this. 

Mucking the stables it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! And, rather than trying to attempt to promise to update more often, I'm going to just admit that it's going to be a while. I was working on Whumptober last month, and this month is NaNoWriMo, so.....it's going to be a while. I promise not to abandon this without saying anything, but....yeah. Sorry about just how spotty updates are. Hopefully they're enjoyable enough for you to forgive me.   
> Thanks again for reading and sticking around! Comments are always welcome, and I hope you enjoyed it!


	10. Bergamot and Tea Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the punishment put on Sylvain for his actions over his birthday weekend, he honestly tries to get better. He studies, he works in the stables, he trains when he has the energy to manage more than his studies and work. Even then, Felix refuses to speak with him, but perhaps Sylvain can be reminded that he has friends other than the Fraldarius heir. Perhaps he could receive advice from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the absolutely abysmal break I took with this. I have chapters written, and I've been slowly chipping away at this fic, but honest my enjoyment of this fic and this fandom was entirely sapped last month and while I have another project that will be released at the end of this month, I had a remarkably difficult time actually getting the energy to work on this fic again.   
> No promises about when the next update will come, though I promise that I am working on it. If ever a time comes that I feel I can't continue this fic and need to abandon it, either I will find someone else who might want to write it, or I will release my entire outline that's been completed for this fic. I don't plan on that, but that will be my promise to you before too long.   
> Comments are always welcome though, and honestly? They really do help writers when we're working on these long fics. There's only so many kudos people can give to fics, and now that I'm about ten chapters into this, I highly doubt that some of you will be able to give them to me. Comments, even small ones, are what help to encourage writers to keep writing and going.   
> Regardless, though, thank you for sticking around, and hopefully you enjoy this next chapter!

CHAPTER 10: BERGAMOT AND TEA LEAVES

CERULEAN HORIZONS

GARLAND MOON, 1180  


Sylvain sighed softly as he stared down at the books in front of him, the words swimming and the taste of the herbs from Manuella still lingering on the back of his tongue just as heavy as the regret on his shoulders. Felix still wasn’t talking to him. He wasn’t even sitting next to him, and Sylvain barely even saw him outside of the lectures and the occasional moments in which he saw the dark shadow of his friend pass by him in the training yards. 

He missed him. Desperately.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve this, though. He did. He deserved every bit of the awful chores he was given, and while being banned from the tavern and indirectly from town in general was somewhat annoying, that didn’t mean there weren’t enough women for him to spend a day with each of them, falling hopelessly in love with them, only to ruin everything within a day or two. 

At least, that’s what everyone saw. 

It wasn’t like he tried to change that at all. Feeding into it helped him survive far better than trying to get rid of that appearance, considering his father actually seemed  _ proud _ of him at points for being such a “lady’s man.” The parchment on which he wrote notes crumpled in his hand at the thought of his father, and he didn’t even get a chance to smooth it out as he felt someone bump into him, sliding into the chair beside him. 

“Someone’s been neglecting me and our agreed-upon tea times.”

Sylvain took a deep breath, needing a moment before forcing a smile on his face and glancing over at Lorenz. “Good morning, Lorenz. We had our tea last month, and I’ve been busy so far this month.”

Lorenz hummed softly, glancing at the books and nodding. “Well, I can certainly see that. However, a good noble always takes time to cultivate relationships with others, so I simply must insist that you take a break for some tea with me. I recently received a package of bergamot tea from my father, and I heard that it was your birthday last week .  While I’m rather disappointed that you didn’t inform me ahead of time, I took the liberty of arranging something for you this week. I’ll be very disappointed if you refuse me.”

That...honestly was rather thoughtful of Lorenz, and even if Sylvain didn’t think he deserved any sort of celebration for his birthday, he at least needed to be polite to Lorenz. “Thank you. I...honestly, I can’t remember the last time I did much for my birthday. Usually Felix and I do something, but…” Sylvain shrugged, forcing a smile on his face after it faded, and he quickly closed the books away and packed his notes up. He’d come back to them later. It wasn’t as though he had actually processed anything that he had read for the past hour.

“Delightful! You can tell me all about it over tea. I hope you like bergamot. I know it can be somewhat polarizing, however I rather enjoy the peppery citrus flavors. Such a wonderful contrast to the earthy leaves that accompany it.”

“Yeah, actually. It’s one of my favorites.”

Lorenz’s smile looked even brighter as he hooked his arm with Sylvain’s and started dragging him out of the library the moment Sylvain finished setting the books away onto his reserved shelf. “Wonderful. I knew you were a man of excellent taste. It will be so good to have something other than the Seiros blend.”

“Or the rose blend. At least I like the Seiros blend,” Sylvain replied, a small, proper smile on his face as he glanced at Lorenz, just in time to see the somewhat insulted look on his face.

“I don’t see why you don’t like it. The delicate floral tones, the natural sweetness that accompanies the petals. The—”

“It tastes a bit like soap, Lorenz.”

Lorenz closed his mouth as he was interrupted, and he hummed for a moment before shrugging. “I suppose that could be an understandable opinion. I suppose Faerghus doesn’t have nearly the access to edible flowers as the Alliance does, so you wouldn’t be as used to such flavors. Almyran Pine is a far more common tea that far north, isn’t it?”

Sylvain nodded, careful to guide Lorenz down the stairs while the other young noble was entirely distracted chatting about tea, rather than watching where they were going. “Yeah. Almyran Pine’s one of the more common ones. We’ve got a few others that aren’t too uncommon, but if we don’t want an imported tea, that’s the one we usually have to buy, and even those blends tend to be mostly imported. I’d like to try some Srengi teas, but…”

“Oh, I doubt you’d be able to do that. I’ve heard they’re delightful, but…”

“But the war and skirmishes makes it hard, yeah.” Sylvain shrugged as he thought about it, making it around the hedges that separated the tea garden from the rest of the monastery, and Lorenz resumed guiding them as he led them to a quiet table in the corner, with a stand full of various sandwiches and desserts piled high. He immediately glanced over at Lorenz, who merely smiled and shrugged as he sat down.

“I inquired to the kitchen staff about your favorite meals before I visited you. I thought we could make a proper lunch of it. While I am not...the most enamored with most of these dishes, I thought it was proper for your birthday.”

Once again, Lorenz showed his true colors as a proper person more than a proper nobleman, and Sylvain couldn’t help the smile that spread on his face. “Thanks, Lorenz. Thank you. It looks amazing. I’ll have to make sure I do at least the same for you on your birthday.”

Lorenz laughed, waving his hand and the suggestion away. “Oh, I couldn’t impose like that at all. Honestly, I far prefer giving such things to others instead of receiving them. I don’t need anything for my birthday.”

Sylvain sighed, rolling his eyes before nodding. “If you insist, I won’t ask Claude about your birthday.”

“Claude! Why would you ask him about me? He entirely ignores my existence, I’m sure.” 

The sharp words, and the way Lorenz practically puffed up like an insulted chicken had Sylvain smiling as he watched Lorenz pour the hot water into the teapot. “Oh, certainly. And if I asked him, I’m sure he wouldn’t know exactly what you’ve done for the past few days.” Sylvain glanced momentarily at Lorenz before looking at the tray of food and picking up a small tart, just large enough for two easy bites. 

Lorenz huffed, shaking his head. “That’s ridiculous. Besides, Claude keeps tabs on everyone in the house. Ridiculous behavior for nobility. He should trust us. After all, we will be his closest advisors and colleagues when he assumes leadership of House Riegan.”

Sylvain hummed softly, non-committal regarding whether or not Claude was acting ridiculous. He knew that Claude was skittish and far more cagey than anyone quite gave him credit for, hiding something behind those blank eyes of his. Similar to Edelgard, but at least he hid his ambition behind jokes. Honestly, Dimitri needed to learn something from both of them, no matter what Felix tried to suggest. “I’m sure he’ll settle better when he finds out that he has allies, rather than competition and enemies,” Sylvain murmured after a few minutes of thought. He shrugged, though, and took another small bite of the tarte. “You seem to pay close attention to him.”

“Of course I do. I need to make sure he’s an adequate leader for the Alliance. That’s all. At least I have a reason to. You watch that Fraldarius heir remarkably closely as well.”

The mention of Felix made it difficult, and he took a deep breath as he thought about it before shrugging. “We’re best friends. Were, I suppose…” Probably were. It’s not like Sylvain deserved to keep him as a friend after everything he did. 

“Oh? Well that’s good, but...you don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

“It’s nothing, Lorenz.”

“Nonsense. I insist you tell me all your woes. It will distract from the fact that you entirely neglected to tell me about your birthday. It’s the very least you can do.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes as he looked at Lorenz, before he ran a hand through his hair. This was ridiculous. This was absolutely ridiculous. He didn’t know why he was doing this, or putting up with these tea parties. “Why don’t we just try to see who can get the most dinners with pretty ladies instead of talking?”

Lorenz rolled his eyes before glancing away and at some of the other tables. “While I admit that it would be extremely amusing to watch you fail in comparison to someone as noble as me, I think you’re rather trying to distract yourself from the problem you have at hand.”

“Lorenz, seriously.”

“Sylvain. Please. I insist that you try to let me help.”

Sylvain sighed, pulling at the back of his hair and he shrugged for a moment as he thought about it. It would be fine. Maybe Lorenz could give him some help, actually. Or maybe he’d just make everything worse. It would require actually opening up to him, and...honestly that terrified him somewhat more than actually whatever else he had done. “I just forgot an appointment I had. I...Felix and I were supposed to go camping. For my birthday. I forgot.” He shrugged after a moment before looking away. 

Lorenz blinked as he looked at Sylvain before frowning. “Have you apologized to him yet? Honestly, Sylvain, for one as noble as you, I would have expected that you’d be more attentive to your appointments.”

“It was a mistake, Lorenz. I didn’t mean to forget about it. I...my father sent me a letter—”

Lorenz held up a hand, stopping Sylvain from continuing, and he smiled at him, even if it seemed to hide something a bit darker in his eyes. “I understand the difficulty of fathers. They can be very difficult, I understand. I’m sure it shook you, somewhat. You likely...made a mistake.”

“I’m fine. My father’s fine. The Margrave is…” Sylvain took a deep breath as he thought about it before shrugging. “My father’s a fine noble, and simply wants the best for me, I’m sure.”

“That’s the problem about fathers…”’ Lorenz sighed softly as he sipped at his tea, looking away. “I suggest you apologize to Felix. It should help to repair the bridge, at the very least. While I don’t know the Blue Lions terribly well, I get the distinct impression that Felix won’t be swayed as some are by gifts or trinkets, so you shouldn’t even begin to think about trying to buy his affection back with flowers like you would with a lady.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes as he looked at Lorenz. “I wouldn’t want to try that, anyways. Why do you think I’d do that?”

“Because you’d do it for a lady. However, Felix is not a lady, and that requires a far different touch.”

“Like what? He’s…” Sylvain sighed as he looked at the small plate of treats, and he quietly nibbled at one of the small cakes. “He’s steady, and firm. He doesn’t really believe in trinkets or the like, and he...he hates the nobility, really. Or at least ideas about chivalry or anything like that.”

“Then he needs actions, if your words cannot help and he hates physical actions to buy you off.” Lorenz nodded, and Sylvain rolled his eyes. 

“But he’s going to know that I’m just trying for his forgiveness.”

“Then make it clear you’re looking for his friendship again. I don’t see why that’s so difficult to understand.”

Sylvain sighed as he looked at the cup of tea in front of himself, and he took a deep breath. Hopefully he could figure something out. “I don’t want to seem like I’m begging,” he finally murmured, feeling stupid in admitting it, and feeling stupid that it was even a concern in the first place. Lorenz laughed softly, shrugging as he looked at Sylvain before he glanced away. 

“Do you mind if I asked what your father did that shook you so much? Perhaps that would help in telling Felix what happened and apologizing to him as well.”

Sylvain’s frown deepened, not sure if he should tell Lorenz that or not, and especially not sure if he felt comfortable telling  _ anyone  _ something like that. Still, he knew that it likely would help, that Felix would understand a bit better, if he could get past his hurt enough to listen to him. “My father gave me a few concoctions. To help me present, really. He has a specific idea of who I am in his head, and so it simply...shook me to have that reminder. The reminder of what he expects me to be in order to fulfill the family line and my life’s purpose and all of that.”

“Oh. Oh, Sylvain, that’s…” Lorenz frowned for a moment before his face smoothed out as he sat more upright and he took a deep breath. “I understand that family is difficult. And as nobility, we are encouraged to keep close ties with our family throughout our lifetimes, but…” He trailed off, leaning forwards, as though this was a terrifying secret he intended to share with Sylvain, and Sylvain frowned as he leaned forwards in return. “Sometimes our family is awful. We might work to make them proud, but...we must find purpose and our own way of nobility.”

Sylvain pulled back, almost surprised about Lorenz, and he raised an eyebrow at him. Lorenz shrugged, sipping at his tea for a few moments. “I’m—”

“I may go on about nobility, however I am not the same as Lord von Aegir. While Ferdinand is a dear friend...he clings to his family name more than what may be reasonable.”

“I’m surprised, honestly.”

Lorenz shrugged before setting his tea aside and starting slightly as he heard the church bell. “Oh, oh, I’m so sorry to do this to you, Sylvain, but I must be going. I have plans in an hour, and I cannot be late. I’ll simply clean this up and be on my—”

“No, no. You go on ahead and get ready. I’ll clean up. It’s not a problem at all.”

Lorenz blinked as he stood up, looking at Sylvain for a little while before a smile broke out across his face. “Thank you, Sylvain. I appreciate that. Truly a noble action, of course. I look forward to our time in the future.”

“It’s sparring next month, or when we have time.”

Lorenz laughed softly before nodding. “Of course. Sparring it is. I look forward to flattening you in the training grounds.”

Sylvain laughed as well, standing and carefully collecting everything onto the tray. “We’ll see if that happens.” He watched as Lorenz ran off after a moment, before looking back at the table with the mostly-eaten pastries, and the tea that was mostly leaves in the bottom of the pot. 

Ask Felix to forgive him, and talk to him. Ridiculous. As though it was as easy as that. As though he hadn’t ruined their friendship by forgetting the one day a year that they could spend time together and ignore the world. He had done nothing but cut away at their friendship since he got there. First just by being himself, and then by unwittingly dragging him into dealing with his heat, and now having to deal with him being a thoughtless idiot and ignoring the traditions they held so tightly to, even after the Tragedy and everything that fell out from that. Ridiculous. And, really, it wasn’t even his friendship with Felix that he was ruining. Ingrid and Dimitri seemed to be even more upset and frustrated with him than usual. He didn’t know what to do about those two, though, considering the fact that this was just how he always was. Actually, well, no. It wasn’t. He was more scattered than usual, feeling as though he was spread thin across a field, rather than simply distracted with trying to keep up pretenses. Now, he was trying to keep up the pretense that he hadn’t presented yet, and the pretense that he liked women and liked wooing them and liked being around them, and the pretense that he didn’t mind the idea that he was only useful for the crest that he just barely happened to inherit from his father.

He carefully balanced the dishes on the tray, as well as the leftover food, making sure he wouldn’t drop anything before making it to the kitchen. While he knew they weren’t  _ technically _ required to do anything like this, he felt better when he could make the staff’s lives easier, even if no one expected him to do that at all. He shifted for a moment, adjusting and slipping past people before making it to the window into the kitchen, setting everything down on the countertop. 

“Leftovers from tea. Hopefully the food won’t go to waste at all,” Sylvain said, leaning in slightly and smiling at the woman at the counter. She grinned, a small blush blooming on her cheeks as Sylvain smiled at her. “Maybe we could take a few minutes, make sure there’s no leftovers at all.”

“Shut up, idiot. She’s busy, can’t you see?”

Sylvain stumbled as Felix pushed into him, and the brief smile on his face faded as he felt everything return to just how awful it was. And how he had hurt Felix. There went the few moments in which it didn’t seem entirely awful. 

“It’s not a crime to ask someone if they want to take a break, Fe.”

“It is for you. Now get moving. Not all of us have nothing to do.”

“Right. Right, then.” Sylvain glanced over at Felix for a moment before offering the woman a small smile. “I hope you have a good day, ma’am. A day as lovely as you are.” He nodded before looking at Felix again, the angry tilt to his eyebrows and the tension in his body, and he turned and left before he made anything worse on the two of them. 


End file.
